Courtesy of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Richard Vedder at the Chronicle notes that 5,000 Ph.D.s are working as ... janitors.
Did those of us who went to college before a political party decided a college education was 'a right' know there would be diminishing returns to a college education once everyone had one? Sure we did, but that's no miracle of economics. Heck, even Paul Krugman could have figured that out.
Vedder agrees.
Putting issues of student abilities aside, the growing disconnect between labor market realities and the propaganda of higher-education apologists is causing more and more people to graduate and take menial jobs or no job at all.
Along with the 5,000 PhDs working as janitors another 8,000 are working as waitresses and waiters. Add in the 309,000 waiters and waitresses with college degrees and basically a college education is leading to the same employment they would have had 25 years ago without a degree.
In California of the last 15 years, employees in higher education have tripled despite there being no material benefit so we need to keep in mind that when there are calls for cutbacks, it isn't that politicians (or citizens) are against education, it's that higher education largely confers private benefits to a few and shouldn't be subsidized with public money.
Basically, not everyone should go to college if it is a stall tactic or a self-esteem booster.
at a time when resources are scarce, when American governments are running $1.3-trillion deficits, when we face huge unfunded liabilities associated with commitments made to our growing elderly population, should we be subsidizing increasingly problematic educational programs for students whose prior academic record would suggest little likelihood of academic, much less vocational, success?
