College and “Useless Degrees”

Why only wealthy kids will be studying the humanities and poor kids will be pushed to “instant job” degree programs.

There are plenty of articles talking about the perils of those of us poor souls with humanities degrees and finding our way in a job market that wants the instant fix in their business from their new employees. One of the biggest questions I find myself asking, “Is there really no place in a modern 21st century economy for humanities majors who tend to be intelligent and quick to learn?” Given the changing dynamics of the global economy, you would think that people who can do almost anything would be ideal players in the job market. However, what we think should be true and the actual reality often differ and this is a classic case of that scenario. While the only advice I can offer current graduates is to work at creating some quantifiable and marketable skills I would like to address a far wider problem: income inequality in higher education.

All Majors Are Important

Before I get to the very practical scenarios behind why this will be true, it should be mentioned that all majors and areas of study are important. The college experience is not just learning in order to get a job but also to learn how to think, take on a long term project, and perseverance. All things that are important in the very real world of employment. Even though people have their various ideas of what majors are valuable which majors are not all forms of study institute these unique habits onto those who study. College is very much both the journey and the graduation destination.

The Scenario

Imagine this scenario: Student A and Student B are looking at going to college. Student A is from a upper middle class family and has good grades and is getting a great deal of financial help from their family. So much so that Student A will graduate without much debt and has the pick of majors and ability to pursue work that will begin their careers . Student B comes from a less financially rewarding background and needs to take out student loans for almost all of their education. From a practical consideration, their family recommends they spend that precious time of youth in school going towards something that will immediately lead to employment not only to pay off the student loans but to provide the financial stability that they will need to help their families and create a good life for themselves and their children. In the pre-2008 environment where a humanities major would be able to launch into the job market and be able to work his or her way through various jobs to find something that really fit, the economy honored the process of study at college regardless of what was actually studies. After 2008 the game has changed and now if you are going to college and you are not wealthy enough to endure the post-college job market doldrums you have two options: technical schools (not a bad option I should add) or an “instant job” degree program.

Passion

“Specialize” has been an edict for a long time. Specialization gives each person a specific niche in which they can sell themselves to potential employers. In the professional world, lawyers and doctors have been doing this for some time. In fact, this has lead to job shortages in some areas where an enterprising medical student could excel and charge a great deal. Unfortunately for those in lower socio-economic situations, their prospects are going to be much more limited. “Will this lead to a specific employment opportunity?” is now the most important question when the question might have been, “What is your passion?” This means that college, once a symbol of middle-class life and a ticket to upward mobility has not only become an essential part of employment but for those first generation students it means that instead of being able to pursue a passion or get out of the working poor pattern, they will be right back where they started just with a bachelors degree to show for their efforts. Shouldn’t college be more than that?

The Bottom Line

In order to fix this disparity, we need to fix the expense of higher education, fix our broken student loan system and provide additional help to low-income students and their families to help people send their kids to college and to help those kids pursue whatever course of study the want to pursue because all work and all passion is valuable.