Education Slowdown Threatens U.S.

People are thinking twice about going after that college degree.  Just about every generation has had a higher level of education than the previous.  Up until now.


With student loan debt spiraling out of control and jobs at a premium people are asking themselves if that college degree is worth it.  Study after study will tell you that people with a college degree make more than those that don't and that the unemployment rate is higher for those without a college degree.


However people are taking a serious look at the risk that college degree carries and with good reason.  As this WSJ article points out young people see recent college grads struggling to find a job and pay off on average $20k to $25k in student loan debt.  To some it is not a risk worth taking.


To some degree employers are still more concerned about where someone went to school rather than can they actually perform the job.  I've long contended that a college degree is merely a ticket that gets you into the dance.  Without that ticket some opportunities will simply not reveal themselves.


Via the WSJ article

• When baby boomers born in 1955 reached age 30, they had about two years more schooling than their parents, according to Harvard University economists Claudia Goldin and Lawrence Katz, who have calculated the average years of schooling for native-born Americans back to 1876.
• "Not all bachelor's degrees are the same," Georgetown University's Center on Education and the Workforce said in an extensive analysis issued last year. "While going to college is undoubtedly a wise decision, what you take while you're there matters a lot, too."
• There is a limit to how much schooling a person can get and to how many Americans have both the ability and interest in a four-year college degree. But the U.S. is nowhere near that point.
• Twenty countries have higher high-school graduation rates than the U.S.—including Slovenia, Finland, Japan, the U.K. and South Korea, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. In the U.S., about one in five ninth-graders drop out before getting a diploma.
• About 30% of American adults have four-year college degrees, and there is little evidence that is a natural ceiling. Thirty years ago, the U.S. led the world in the percentage of 25- to 34-year-olds with the equivalent of at least a two-year degree; only Canada and Israel were close. As of 2009, the U.S. lagged behind 14 other developed countries, the OECD says.
• While not every college grad does better in the job market, statistics consistently show that, on average, the more educated the worker, the better he or she fares in today's job market. For example, 54% of high-school graduates over age 25 were working in March, the Labor Department says, while the rest were either looking for work or out of the labor force altogether. Among those with some college, 64% were working while 73% of those with a bachelor's degree or more were working.
• The fraction of 25- to 29-year-old men who had earned four-year degrees began a two-decade-long slide around 1975. After that, fewer young men sought refuge from the Vietnam War draft by going to college. Moreover, a decline in the size of the bonus that college graduates commanded, compared with high-school graduates, provided less reason to go to college.
• More men began going to college in the early 1990s. Changes in the economy and technology as well as a shortage of educated workers pushed the wages of college grads well above those of high-school graduates. The fraction of men in their late 20s with four-year degrees has been climbing since 1994, hitting 27.8% in 2010. Despite the uptick, however, that is barely above the 27.5% reported for 1976, according to the Census Bureau.
• For women, the trend is strikingly different. While male college-going fell off in the 1970s—in part because men were more likely than women to think they could get well-paid construction or factory jobs without degrees—women kept going. In 2010, 36% of women in their late 20s had earned at least a bachelor's degree, up from 20% in 1976.
• While college enrollment has risen lately—as often happens when people flee a lousy job market—completion rates are disappointing. "We've become very good at getting people to start college," says Harvard's Mr. Katz. "We are not very good at getting people through college."
• About 70% of high-school graduates enroll in a two- or four-year college soon after finishing high school, but many never get a degree or any other credential. At four-year colleges, 43% of those who enrolled as freshmen in 2002 hadn't received a degree six years later, according to the U.S. Department of Education.

• Tuition is up, particularly at public colleges that draw the most students. Over the past 10 years, for instance, average published tuition and fees (not counting room and board) at four-year public colleges rose by 72% to $8,240 from $4,790, adjusted for inflation, according to the College Board. Sticker prices are misleading because student aid has become more bountiful. After grants as well as tax deductions and credits, the average net price rose by a much smaller sum—$1,160—to $2,490 over the decade, but that is still an 87% increase.
• Today, student debt outstanding now exceeds Americans' total credit-card debt. In 2009-10, about 55% of public four-year college students graduated with debt; on average, they owed $22,000, the College Board says.
• "The greater society told me I had to go to college if I want to make it in life, but it's not true," said Mr. Gavic, who competes semiprofessionally in snowboarding. "I don't care about making a lot of money because I'm happy. I'm just living the life."
• "You spend all this time in school, then you are in debt, then you have to find a job to spend 20 years paying it back," he said. "That never made sense to me."