The message we should be sending is in the middle: "Some of you can do what you want, if you try hard enough and happen to want something that society values"
Note: not affiliated, it's just so perfect.
In other words, the same people who are imparting the message - their parents.
If we go with the third option, parents teaching their children to have realistic expectations and forward-looking attitudes towards education, then there is no problem. If people understand that they can succeed if they pick the right field and try hard enough, but should not expect success if they don't, then we are golden.
Right now many people seem to reject the "pick the right field" part not because they disagree with it, but because they disapprove of it.
Yes, realism and awareness are important. But, the reasons they are so important right now are the complacencies and narcissistic ideologies that have inhibited the nation's prosperity.
(Just ignoring the dubious nature of the assertion about declining standard of living, particularly for people other than white males...)
Alternatively it is because all the Baby Boomers are sending all of their kids off to college, pushing it as the only legitimate career path, reducing the relative value of merely having a college degree, and ultimately forcing kids to specialize something actually useful to remain competitive. Improved standards of living (in this case, near universal access to universities) is to blame, but who can really fault an improved standard of living?
If you only have a few lucky people going to college, then a classical or "liberal arts" education is worth something. If these sorts of educations are a dime a dozen, then you need a more specialized degree to compete. A specialized degree in something relevant to whatever you are competing for. It turns out that a history degree isn't something that is valued in that sort of system.
tl;dr: More kids go to college -> Each kid in college has more people to compete with -> More kids focus on classes that will help them compete -> Fewer kids load up on History classes -> Fewer history professors are needed.
"Previously it had been possible for a young man just out of high school to get a good-paying unskilled job in a unionized factory, buy a house in the suburbs, with a federally-insured mortgage, and send his kids to college with government-supported student loans. This was a common road to the success promised in the American Dream. Millions achieved that coveted upward mobility. Under the illusion they were no longer working-class, they thought of themselves as a new class in the middle, somewhere between the poor and the rich - a middle class. It is neoliberal globalization that has now blocked that road for more and more people. For the first time in generations, the next generation has a lower standard of living than their parents."
http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/16291-the-american-dream-...
>Alternatively it is because all the Baby Boomers are sending all of their kids off to college, pushing it as the only legitimate career path, reducing the relative value of merely having a college degree, and ultimately forcing kids to specialize something actually useful to remain competitive.
It's this same complacency at hand - it worked for me, it will work for you.
>Improved standards of living (in this case, near universal access to universities) is to blame, but who can really fault an improved standard of living?
Sure, there are way more people going to college. In a reasonable situation, this would also mean that there needs to be way more professors.
It's the declining standard of living. It used to be that you could get by fine on a professor's salary, and so they hired professors. Now, they can't afford to pay a living wage, and so they don't, and they call them 'adjunct' professors.