College in America Blog

Fifty years ago there weren’t any “worthless” degrees. For example, I graduated with a BA in Philosophy, answered a newspaper ad on a whim, and, lo and behold, was launched into a successful career in Information Technology. (I had never seen a computer.) College in America no longer works the way it used to: The […]

Colleges and universities are churning out 1,900,000 bachelor’s degrees every year. College grads are a-dime-a-dozen. Forty-three percent of those who graduate (around 800,000) end up in jobs that don’t require a college degree. This varies widely by major. Liberal Arts majors end up underemployed upon graduation fifty-four percent of the time. That’s not a good […]

Making a success out of college has become really difficult. I was a first-gen student sixty years ago. I made every mistake in the book. However, the world was a lot simpler then, and I managed to stagger through it all. When I think about what it would be like to be a first-gen student […]

Only ten percent of the jobs in the US pay $30-$40 per hour. I don’t believe many parents start out with the question, “How can my little Johnny make $35/hour.” They just assume that sending their kid to college will put him on the road to financial prosperity. They couldn’t be more wrong. To get […]

” Can you give me a heads up on the three most important things I should be thinking about?” This was a question I tackled on Quora recently. It got me to thinking. We have this “College Thing” all screwed up. It used to work pretty well. Not too long ago, a bachelor’s degree would […]

I certainly understand the economic point you are making but I don’t believe that money is at the heart of the problem. My plumber makes $100,000. He can’t find apprentices. My local community college has dropped their plumbing certification—no interest. As a society we “crossed a bridge” some time ago. College has been established as […]

August is here. Swarms of freshmen are descending on our college campuses—like locusts. There are three factors that will have a major impact on whether or not these young people will make a success of college: • You have to graduate. About sixty percent of these high school graduates who are matriculating will earn some […]

Summer is flying by. College football starts in six weeks. It was just six weeks ago that the high school graduation season wrapped up. I attended graduations in three local, public high schools near my home. Now I don’t live in Lake Woebegon, where all the children are above average. I live in a middle-class […]

When you take Econ 101, one of the first concepts taught is that of “moral hazard.” Here’s how Investopedia describes “moral hazard.” “Moral hazard is the risk that a party to a transaction has not entered into the contract in good faith, has provided misleading information about its assets, liabilities, credit capacity, or when one […]

There are segments of our society where college has become “a rite of passage,” a societal norm. I saw a two question survey for parents a few weeks ago: Q1 Do you think college is for everyone? A1 Oh, no. Absolutely not! 80% Q2 Should your student go to college? A2 Yes, certainly! 80% Way […]