26.3.12
The bubble in education
NYTimes has it:
Its readers have it:
Ms. Susan ChardonDenver CO
The article states that "Drew ranks 94th among 178 private liberal-arts colleges on U.S. News & World Report’s annual list."
You and all of the other legitimate news media are well aware that U.S. News's rankings are nothing but voodoo pseudo-science and that, in addition to exploiting college intenders and their families, they have exerted on demonstrably pernicious impact on the behavior of the colleges whose "quality" they purport to measure. (I am referring here to the many institutions who have admitted to submitting 'distorted' data to the publication in the hope of increasing their rankings.)
Why do you legitimize the U.S. News flim-flam by referencing their bogus rankings in your article? It strikes me as lazy - if not irresponsible - journalism.
MWCA
Both of my children are graduating from college this year in the Class of 2012, one from Berkeley as a history major and one from Seattle Pacific as an English major. Our daughter plans to continue to work as a nanny for two families after graduation. Our son will keep his waiting and bartending job at a Berkeley restaurant. They are fourth-generation college students. They hope to make their way into the top 80% doing meaningful work that requires higher-level thinking skills, which they have spent the last 17 years developing.
My husband and I, who worked three jobs between us and saved our entire marriage for their education, spent more than $200,000 on their four-year degrees. As much as we believe in the intrinsic rewards of university and as proud of our kids as we are, it's hard not to imagine that our son and daughter would be better off if we had given them $100,000 each and sent them to an investment class at the community college.
I really feel for their generation, especially those kids who have played by the rules, "done everything right" and worked hard. Hopefully, this is just a temporary setback for young, highly educated people and not the beginning stages of collapse of a higher education Ponzi scheme.
S.P.Saint Louis
The dreamer in me wants to tell these recent grads, stay positive and keep trying. But the pragmatist in me says, welcome to the new America - second world oligarchy, which is rapidly becoming third world tyranny (unless we stop the insanity of allowing corporations, banks, and insurance companies to buy our politicians).
Dave NullClaremont, California
Sadly, I seems that the most successful graduate ("I opened my own practice offering colonics-based nutritional treatments.") is one that is engaged in a medically useless swindle.
richCON
I hope this does not sound harsh. But if it does, tough.
I am a hiring manager in the aerospace industry, and a graduate professor of space operations.
If you just got a BA, you invested $200,000 in a degree that is, by itself, worthless. Unless you are a scientist or engineer, the demand for you is essentially zero. And scientists and engineers are not doing all that great.
What to do?
First take a job. Any job. If your resume shows a multi-year gap after college, it goes in the discard pile. We understand times are tough. Work at something. This demonstrates you can get out of bed, get dressed, and show up. Many of your fellows can't. It's a discriminator.
Get some skills. If you want to be a bank VP, get a job as a teller. If you have anything on the ball, you will be noticed and you will rise in the organization. But beware of looking better than your boss. He or she probably feels his or her job is on the line every day.
Nobody cares what you know. Nobody cares what school you attended. All we care about is what you can do.
PjoeStratford
We all have gone through this. I didn't have a "real job" out of college for years. And please stop with this absurd notion that people shouldn't have to be burdened with their loans. If you borrow $128K to get an English degree with no further plans for grad school... you're not very smart, sorry. I'm proud of my liberal arts education, but I didn't pay $50K for it. Go to a public university instead of insisting that on private schools that cost too much and usually aren't very good. Also, the POINT of an education is to BE EDUCATED - to get an education. It's not a guarantee for anything. No one is going to give you anything. And YES - it IS about who you know. It's called Networking - and it's the only way to get a job whether you're 22 or 52.
JPMcCluskeyHampton NJ
I would love to see a New York Times article on just how many companies, including the "Fortune 500" use free labor by giving internships. Yes, they may give the students experience in the job but aren't they also getting free hours of work. And how many of those interns get jobs in those companies after their free labor. Getting experience is very important for not only college students but also high school students. Yet, I can't help but wonder about the "Child Labor Laws?" Or doesn't that matter anymore? It would be nice if they at least go travel and lunch money or some kind of help to pay off their college loans.
So any reporter out there looking for a story to investigate, get data, and report on-well I would love to read what you find out.
mcNashville, TN
When I graduated with a BA at the end of the 70s, the economy was terrible, the state of the world was terrible, we were lucky to get jobs waiting tables, We all felt cheated. But eventually, after years of minimum wage labor, most of us got "good" jobs. Some of us got great jobs. I went to a state school and did not graduate with lots of debt.
What helped was having work experience, any kind. Do some kind of work while you're in school--skip the party, get a job. Another trick I learned is that you can volunteer to do things you don't know how to do yet, work hard and learn and do OK, and they'll give you a reference even if you didn't get a salary. I hate unpaid internships too, but you can learn skills, meet people and get referrals. In 2012, I'll bet there will be political campaigns that need willing hands...
Liberal arts majors: don't lose heart. At first, you'll look foolish compared to the accounting majors. But eventually, people who have good writing skills and can actually analyze and think will do pretty well. (All my liberal arts pals are doing just fine, thanks, and not just the ones that graduated long ago. Be creative and open-minded about what you'll do. Writing financial reports can pay the bills too.)
Nobody will ever hire a C- engineer or programmer. It is better to be an excellent, though underpaid, writer than an unemployable programmer or an accountant who can't really do the work. Just be ready to work harder to establish yourself.
MaximWashington DC
I, too, am a recent grad, but a non-traditional student. I'm 53 and just graduated with my second masters degree from a top university. But it has led nowhere.
I lost my job in public policy a year ago. Funny thing is that my first college degree in music is what puts bread and butter on the table because I teach a few piano students.
I empathize with young grads, but they should realize it's also tough for older people like myself because of ageism - age discrimination. I've had many interviews with interviewers who are half my age with only half my work experience in policy.
I look ahead to the elections and worry about the future considering what the legislators and Wall Street have already done to hurt the hard-working American public.
mlnyc
Dear grads: my class also graduated into a recession. It was the early 1990s. At that time, most "career resources" were tattered folders in the so-called "guidance" office. Since we did not belong to the cossetted cohorts of Baby Boomers offspring, society at large seemed not to give a hoot about our lousy job prospects and told we despised Gen X younglings to "take anything" (which seems to be what many of you have done as well.)
This is not a "I walked through a snowstorm to get to school at your age" speech; it's a note of support. The first few years were rough, but the Internet was on the rise, Prague and Japan were wide open, and today we're on average doing pretty well. Don't let your parents' anxiety or your (understandable) depression get the best of you. If you need to move for a few years to China to teach English, that's a great way to be independent, build up savings, pay off your loans, meet interesting people, see new things and develop new skills.
If travel isn't possible, fair enough.. Take the temp job or the Wawa stint if you can, and go to lots of professional Meetups and other evening talks/events in your area. Print up cards with your name and contact information. If someone asks you about yourself, say honestly that you are a recent college grad who want to learn more about opportunities in that field. Networking can feel frustrating and it is a learned skill like anything else. It will not work until it does.
Good luck.
Tim BalBelle Mead, NJ
Pay no attention to graduation speeches. Join the revolution. Change will not come until you force it. The 99 percent need to wake up.
The 1.7 million members of the Class of 2011 witnessed, within the four-year span of their college careers, one of the greatest bull markets in United States history and the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. Last spring, they shed their caps and gowns and joined a kind of B.A. bread line. Unemployment among recent liberal-arts graduates, at 9.4 percent, was higher than the national average, and student-loan debt, at an average of nearly $25,000, had reached record levels. Worse still, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics was reporting that only 5 of the 20 jobs projected to grow fastest over the coming decade would require a bachelor’s degree. Though the statistics still show that a college degree correlates with both higher income and lower unemployment in the long run, diplomas didn’t seem very valuable when they were handed out last May.
Its readers have it:
Ms. Susan ChardonDenver CO
The article states that "Drew ranks 94th among 178 private liberal-arts colleges on U.S. News & World Report’s annual list."
You and all of the other legitimate news media are well aware that U.S. News's rankings are nothing but voodoo pseudo-science and that, in addition to exploiting college intenders and their families, they have exerted on demonstrably pernicious impact on the behavior of the colleges whose "quality" they purport to measure. (I am referring here to the many institutions who have admitted to submitting 'distorted' data to the publication in the hope of increasing their rankings.)
Why do you legitimize the U.S. News flim-flam by referencing their bogus rankings in your article? It strikes me as lazy - if not irresponsible - journalism.
MWCA
Both of my children are graduating from college this year in the Class of 2012, one from Berkeley as a history major and one from Seattle Pacific as an English major. Our daughter plans to continue to work as a nanny for two families after graduation. Our son will keep his waiting and bartending job at a Berkeley restaurant. They are fourth-generation college students. They hope to make their way into the top 80% doing meaningful work that requires higher-level thinking skills, which they have spent the last 17 years developing.
My husband and I, who worked three jobs between us and saved our entire marriage for their education, spent more than $200,000 on their four-year degrees. As much as we believe in the intrinsic rewards of university and as proud of our kids as we are, it's hard not to imagine that our son and daughter would be better off if we had given them $100,000 each and sent them to an investment class at the community college.
I really feel for their generation, especially those kids who have played by the rules, "done everything right" and worked hard. Hopefully, this is just a temporary setback for young, highly educated people and not the beginning stages of collapse of a higher education Ponzi scheme.
S.P.Saint Louis
The dreamer in me wants to tell these recent grads, stay positive and keep trying. But the pragmatist in me says, welcome to the new America - second world oligarchy, which is rapidly becoming third world tyranny (unless we stop the insanity of allowing corporations, banks, and insurance companies to buy our politicians).
Dave NullClaremont, California
Sadly, I seems that the most successful graduate ("I opened my own practice offering colonics-based nutritional treatments.") is one that is engaged in a medically useless swindle.
richCON
I hope this does not sound harsh. But if it does, tough.
I am a hiring manager in the aerospace industry, and a graduate professor of space operations.
If you just got a BA, you invested $200,000 in a degree that is, by itself, worthless. Unless you are a scientist or engineer, the demand for you is essentially zero. And scientists and engineers are not doing all that great.
What to do?
First take a job. Any job. If your resume shows a multi-year gap after college, it goes in the discard pile. We understand times are tough. Work at something. This demonstrates you can get out of bed, get dressed, and show up. Many of your fellows can't. It's a discriminator.
Get some skills. If you want to be a bank VP, get a job as a teller. If you have anything on the ball, you will be noticed and you will rise in the organization. But beware of looking better than your boss. He or she probably feels his or her job is on the line every day.
Nobody cares what you know. Nobody cares what school you attended. All we care about is what you can do.
PjoeStratford
We all have gone through this. I didn't have a "real job" out of college for years. And please stop with this absurd notion that people shouldn't have to be burdened with their loans. If you borrow $128K to get an English degree with no further plans for grad school... you're not very smart, sorry. I'm proud of my liberal arts education, but I didn't pay $50K for it. Go to a public university instead of insisting that on private schools that cost too much and usually aren't very good. Also, the POINT of an education is to BE EDUCATED - to get an education. It's not a guarantee for anything. No one is going to give you anything. And YES - it IS about who you know. It's called Networking - and it's the only way to get a job whether you're 22 or 52.
JPMcCluskeyHampton NJ
I would love to see a New York Times article on just how many companies, including the "Fortune 500" use free labor by giving internships. Yes, they may give the students experience in the job but aren't they also getting free hours of work. And how many of those interns get jobs in those companies after their free labor. Getting experience is very important for not only college students but also high school students. Yet, I can't help but wonder about the "Child Labor Laws?" Or doesn't that matter anymore? It would be nice if they at least go travel and lunch money or some kind of help to pay off their college loans.
So any reporter out there looking for a story to investigate, get data, and report on-well I would love to read what you find out.
mcNashville, TN
When I graduated with a BA at the end of the 70s, the economy was terrible, the state of the world was terrible, we were lucky to get jobs waiting tables, We all felt cheated. But eventually, after years of minimum wage labor, most of us got "good" jobs. Some of us got great jobs. I went to a state school and did not graduate with lots of debt.
What helped was having work experience, any kind. Do some kind of work while you're in school--skip the party, get a job. Another trick I learned is that you can volunteer to do things you don't know how to do yet, work hard and learn and do OK, and they'll give you a reference even if you didn't get a salary. I hate unpaid internships too, but you can learn skills, meet people and get referrals. In 2012, I'll bet there will be political campaigns that need willing hands...
Liberal arts majors: don't lose heart. At first, you'll look foolish compared to the accounting majors. But eventually, people who have good writing skills and can actually analyze and think will do pretty well. (All my liberal arts pals are doing just fine, thanks, and not just the ones that graduated long ago. Be creative and open-minded about what you'll do. Writing financial reports can pay the bills too.)
Nobody will ever hire a C- engineer or programmer. It is better to be an excellent, though underpaid, writer than an unemployable programmer or an accountant who can't really do the work. Just be ready to work harder to establish yourself.
MaximWashington DC
I, too, am a recent grad, but a non-traditional student. I'm 53 and just graduated with my second masters degree from a top university. But it has led nowhere.
I lost my job in public policy a year ago. Funny thing is that my first college degree in music is what puts bread and butter on the table because I teach a few piano students.
I empathize with young grads, but they should realize it's also tough for older people like myself because of ageism - age discrimination. I've had many interviews with interviewers who are half my age with only half my work experience in policy.
I look ahead to the elections and worry about the future considering what the legislators and Wall Street have already done to hurt the hard-working American public.
mlnyc
Dear grads: my class also graduated into a recession. It was the early 1990s. At that time, most "career resources" were tattered folders in the so-called "guidance" office. Since we did not belong to the cossetted cohorts of Baby Boomers offspring, society at large seemed not to give a hoot about our lousy job prospects and told we despised Gen X younglings to "take anything" (which seems to be what many of you have done as well.)
This is not a "I walked through a snowstorm to get to school at your age" speech; it's a note of support. The first few years were rough, but the Internet was on the rise, Prague and Japan were wide open, and today we're on average doing pretty well. Don't let your parents' anxiety or your (understandable) depression get the best of you. If you need to move for a few years to China to teach English, that's a great way to be independent, build up savings, pay off your loans, meet interesting people, see new things and develop new skills.
If travel isn't possible, fair enough.. Take the temp job or the Wawa stint if you can, and go to lots of professional Meetups and other evening talks/events in your area. Print up cards with your name and contact information. If someone asks you about yourself, say honestly that you are a recent college grad who want to learn more about opportunities in that field. Networking can feel frustrating and it is a learned skill like anything else. It will not work until it does.
Good luck.
Tim BalBelle Mead, NJ
Pay no attention to graduation speeches. Join the revolution. Change will not come until you force it. The 99 percent need to wake up.
1.3.12
Two sides of DAVOS WEF
Just to have the opportunity to be invited to Davos, you must be invited to be a member of the World Economic Forum, a Swiss nonprofit that was founded by Klaus Schwab, a German-born academic who managed to build a global conference in the snow.
There are several levels of membership: the basic level, which will get you one invitation to Davos, costs 50,000 Swiss francs, or about $52,000. The ticket itself is another 18,000 Swiss francs ($19,000), plus tax, bringing the total cost of membership and entrance fee to $71,000.
But that fee just gets you in the door with the masses at Davos, with entry to all the general sessions. If you want to be invited behind the velvet rope to participate in private sessions among your industry’s peers, you need to step up to the “Industry Associate” level. That costs $137,000, plus the price of the ticket, bringing the total to about $156,000.
Of course, most chief executives don’t like going anywhere alone, so they might ask a colleague along. Well, the World Economic Forum doesn’t just let you buy an additional ticket for $19,000. Instead, you need to upgrade your annual membership to the “Industry Partner” level. That will set you back about $263,000, plus the cost of two tickets, bringing the total to $301,000.
And if you want to take an entourage, say, five people? Now you’re talking about the “Strategic Partner” level. The price tag: $527,000. (That’s just the annual membership entitling you to as many as five invitations. Each invitation is still $19,000 each, so if five people come, that’s $95,000, making the total $622,000.) This year, all Strategic Partners are required to invite at least one woman along in an effort to diversify the attendee list.
 |
Klaus Schwab - World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2012 |
I was at Davos a few times. It is more like a country club than a problem-solving event. You meet people like yourself - from the very top - and you schmooze (for want of a better term). It is considered important to be there because you are there. Big connections can be made, but usually are not.
Underneath, the sessions to "solve problems" are largely a joke. You get the hyper-qualified talking at each other, past each other, through each other. I recall having seen Bill Gates discuss development strategies with Paul Wolfowitz: it was a whirlwind of articulate generalities. Of course, things occasionally do happen with the connections made, but they are lower-order stuff and I seriously wonder if they are worth the price of admission.
So much of it depends on maintaining that it is important, which is the brand of the WEF. It was fun to be there, very fun, but it wasn't important.
sipaNYC
And its all tax-deductable for the executives. Which means that the American taxpayer is picking up part of the bill and once again subsidizing the corporate executive class
Tony Dykes Oakland
If you can afford this by definition you are completely disconnected from all of the worlds major troubles. They are academic rather than personal problems; you can buy your way out of dealing with them.
What do these people know about fixing things they cannot relate to?
on-the-roadnew jersey
Unbelievable! It used to be that the wealthy could buy themselves a life of luxury. Now the super wealthy can buy intellectual seriousness and global influence. No one else's ideas are worth being heard, I guess. The super rich are both ridiculous and overwhelmingly powerful.
uebelgermany
Revolting.
AaronSFlorida
And that's why the rich stay rich: They mingle and network with other powerful people, well beyond the reach or ability of the masses.
Really, if Davos was to be swallowed by the earth when everyone was there, would it be considered an act of terrorism...or salvation?
Do we REALLY think that all the good ideas in the world are had by only a handful of wealthy people? Price barriers like this ensure that great ideas held by common people must travel much farther, must overcome many more barriers, to be heard...if ever.
Sorry, but this conservative Republican has become disillusioned with the rich and powerful that I used to respect. These are the very people who brought us the current world economy, who are even now swooping in to buy at "Distress Sale" prices, and here they are getting together again to plan their next steps.
I'm thinking Karl Marx's view of this class was more accurate than we give him credit for.
Kevin BitzReading, PA
Yup... and they are all paying for it out of their Bush tax cuts and the "hedge fund carried interest at 15%"...
John in SeattleWA
Solving the worlds' problems? Really, sounds to me like an excuse to spend outrageous sums of money for collective ego-stroking. The money would be better spent helping people in real need, and there are plenty of us in the world. Perhaps we should charter a jet and crash the party, now that I would like to see!
Fred M.RI
ah...so that's why dividends paid by large corporations are so low, even though their profits are so high....
dpe ottawa
when everyone is somebody,no one is any body
ShowMeMissouri
How out-of-touch are these people? No wonder the US economy is not working for the poor and middle-classes!
 |
Impressions - World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2012DAVOS/SWITZERLAND, 28JAN12 - Impression of the session 'Creative Job Creation with the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania' at the Annual Meeting 2012 of the World Economic Forum at the congress centre in Davos, Switzerland, January 28, 2012 |
TCincinnati
And where is the voice of the people? Certainly not here. The ruling class meet and exclude the people. Democracy is subverted in these forums.
tarwaterSan Francisco Bay Area
" ...given by Google on Friday night for several hundred people, can run more than $250,000 for the evening. "
Money sickness. The "revolution" that Google postured is just another degenerative form of the money sickness.
David South of the equator
Disgusting
Jake WSan Antonio, Texas
That is obnoxious. These people spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to attend parties with the other "elite"? Why not just meet for free somewhere and donate the money to Haiti or someplace that needs it? The ways people find to waste money never cease to amaze.
ScotNorth Carolina
Is anything concretely solved during the Davos Forum? $185 mil could do wonders in the rural area that I reside! In these tough economic tides it seems that the "great minds" could make greater waves with more doing than talking. Just the opinion of a simple-minded small business person.
TCDC
Why not select the most impoverished place in the world and pump money into it and host the forum there? Each time improve somewhere else in the world that needs help.
James DeVriesPontoise, France
So, presumably there won't be many drought-stricken subsistence farmers, penniless refugees from war-torn countries, chronically unemployed people who spitefully blame their lot on short term (and short-sighted) profits-driven corporate strategies, not to mention all those pesky foreclosed-upon, through-the-cracks dropouts from the lower middle-classes of developed countries who stubbornly refuse to recognise that they are just a bunch of shiftless,tricksterish, flim-flamming "losers"... wandering about the hallways... Crashing meetings... Trying to wheedle a symbolic dime of charity here... A nickel of shameless giveaway there.
Phew! Such disorder might confuse some of these other fine, well-oiled, undoubtedly well-groomed, upper-crust thinkers, movers and shakers. Participants' financing proves their merit, after all! Such other beggary as described above might muddle the issues that our well-greased representatives of the good life and how to achieve it should otherwise, and easily, slide right through. That's what oil and grease are all about.
Already it's hard enough to get back to the good old days, when business, economics and top-level humanitarian boffins could simply agree that developing countries MUST open their markets so as to offer severely disadvantaged developed countries a level playing field, at last! ...MUST accept any and all conditions the IMF and World Bank seek, in their infinite fatherly, even paternal, even paternalistic (no, bad connotation---scratch the latter) wisdom, to "grant" them. Free trade, strip away protections, cut coddling subsidies (encourages shiftlessness, dependency and corruption!), lower any walls against foreign direct investment on the investors' terms: that's the ticket!
We like it. Raise those ticket prices some more. Spike up attendant costs each year. That'll keep the riff-raff out.
Can't wait to read the reporting as the forum proceeds. What strikes one is that, faced with the withering enigmas, Gordian riddles and nearly impenetrable mysteries of making a complex world work in the interest of "the greatest good for the greatest number... (now who said that?)", they nonetheless maintain an unflappable sense of humour.
That is, their conclusions are always good for a laugh.
s q greyVermont squirrel's nest
"...ostensibly to contemplate how to solve the world’s problems." Wouldn't you think that with the scale of economic clout these people represent, and therefore the stake they have in a good outcome (earthwise, humanitywise, etc.), that there would issue forth from such a heady convergence of apparent talents at least some semblance of urgency in their addressing 'the world's problems'?
aperturemadWest Hollywood
Hey Bono - How many people could you feed with your entry fees?
DavidAshland, Oregon
And somehow, by spending all of this money, these people are to be seen as the world's "problem solvers"?
Puhleeeeze!
It's just a bunch of people with too much money on a weekend bender.
davidhuntington , new york
All this when every one knows business success only relies on paying your employees the least amount possible.
BimUS
This doesn't sound like a non-profit to me ...
Darrell Hampton Dayton Ohio
Even in the best of economic times this is just sinful. Any person who spends company or tax-payer funds in this manner should be removed from their position and sent directly to a Board Certified Licensed Psychiatrist for extended counseling. They are crazy!
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