college

But don’t you earn more with a college degree?

by Steve Wyckoff on November 16, 2010

I was asked a really good question recently following a presentation on school change. I was asked to explain the paradox between two schools of thought regarding college educations. On one hand we read all the time the data that indicates how much more money you will earn in your lifetime as a college graduate, and on the other hand how overrated a college education can be.

I should’ve thought about this long before now but it appears to me that the answer is all about averages. When you consider the  high potential lifetime earning power of some college degrees and the very low potential of others, on average college graduates do very well.

But when you consider that  according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics over 317,000 waiters and waitresses have college degrees (over 8,000 of them have doctoral or professional degrees), along with over 80,000 bartenders, and over 18,000 parking lot attendants, you can see that these college degrees bring that average way down.

All told, some 17,000,000 Americans with college degrees are doing jobs that the BLS says require less than the skill levels associated with a bachelor’s degree.

Looking a little deeper, 4 of 10 of the most popular majors include, Social Sciences (ex. History and Political Science) Psychology, Communication, and English. The most popular careers of these majors include retail store managers, customer service representatives, and administrative assistants, none of which are high salary careers.

I don’t have any problem with an individual earning a college degree and choosing any career they choose. What I do object to is telling high school students and their parents that they absolutely must have a college degree in order to be successful in life, but failing to tell them that not all college degrees will earn them enough money to even pay off their college loans.

It is unconscionable to imply that every college degree has the same earning power. Students should be given all of the information before they choose from among their post secondary options. Yes, with the right college degree your chances of making a much better living are greatly enhanced. But if you choose the wrong college degree, and exacerbate the problem with excessive college loans, you will never approach the earning power you desire.

What’s even more frustrating is the erroneous message we give high school kids that our core curriculum is essential for them to obtain that college degree that leads to high salaries. Our core curriculum is much more closely associated with those college degrees that lead to low salaries.

I suspect that if students and parents had all the facts they would be much more inclined to support school change that changed our core curriculum to a more appropriate offering. – Steve Wyckoff

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School change: did Facebook create helicopter moms?

by Steve Wyckoff on September 17, 2010

While I normally talk about school change, I just finished the book, The Facebook Effect by David Kirkpatrick and it prompted several thoughts. The idea of a “helicopter mom” being one of those thoughts. “Helicopter mom” is a relatively new idea. It describes the mom that hovers over her children with much greater knowledge and participation in their kids lives than ever before.

A friend of mine who is a professor at a major university has told me several times how mothers of his students actually call him. The first time he told me I was flabbergasted! I barely told my mom where I was going to college let alone give her enough information to call a professor.

But Facebook has changed all that. In it’s inception it was strictly for college students, but as it grew Facebook began to allow anybody to join. The phenomenon of helicopter moms was born. Mothers started demanding that their kids friend them. And since the penetration of Facebook among college students was so great it instantly made mothers aware or of their child’s inner most thoughts and activities at college.

But it’s just not a phenomenon for college students. Most high school kids have a Facebook account also and many parents allow them to have a Facebook account under the condition that they friend the parents. So as with the college students, parents of high school students are learning more about their students, what they think, and what they do, then ever before.

It created an interesting and new dynamic for educators. I think the jury is still out whether or not the effects are positive or negative, but I suspect that more transparency in the long term will be a very good thing. I’m not sure yet either if it will cause real school change or simply impact the current system. – Steve Wyckoff

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School change: All college degrees are not created equally

August 23, 2010

When we talk about school change there is always a discussion about preparing students for college. There is no doubt that in the 21st century those people who are the most successful tend to be those with the highest level of education. But not all college degrees are highly correlated with being successful in the [...]

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School change: Enough with the “college ready”

July 19, 2010

If we really want school change the first thing we should abandon is the concept of “college ready” for every student. I know, I’ve said it before, and I could feel you rolling your eyes through the internet. I didn’t say we should completely abandon “college ready,” but it shouldn’t be the main focus of [...]

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School change: College, the tail waging the dog

July 15, 2010

I believe it was George Bernard Shaw who said, “all great ideas began as blasphemy.” Well, here’s some blasphemy for you, when it comes to school change our universities are the tail wagging the dog. We spend at the least 80% of our time in K-12 education preparing kids for a four-year liberal arts degree. [...]

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But what if the national standards are wrong?

March 23, 2010

There is a growing conversation about the need for national standards. But do we need national standards? And what if they pick the wrong standards? I just finished Howard Gardner’s new book, Five Minds For The Future, and as always Dr. Gardner did a wonderful job. But, everything Dr. Gardner talked about, in terms of [...]

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Under employeed OR over educated?

February 23, 2010

I received an interesting phone call the other day from a consultant who is working with one of the largest cities in Kansas in  determining their workforce needs and attempting to determine why there is a lack of skilled labor available. I had been referred to her by an area superintendent that was aware of [...]

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College of Education: KU

February 16, 2010

For the 34th and 35th time I had the opportunity this week to speak to students in the College of Education at the University Kansas. Twice each semester for the last nine years I’ve had the opportunity to speak to students in Dr. Mike Neill’s class. These are students who hope to become teachers. Usually [...]

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College Or College?

January 21, 2010

This post is cross posted with Kansas Career website. Regardless of how old you are you’ve heard for most of your life that you need to go to college. You’ve heard it from your mom and dad, grandmother and grandfather, and even the President of the United States. In fact, from many presidents of the [...]

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