John’s column today raises a very important point: Is it the case that the economy is changing in ways that are gradually eliminating jobs for people with less formal education than a BA? Or is it the case that there is and will continue to be strong demand for workers who don’t have higher education credentials, but can nevertheless learn to do useful things. As I look out my windown, I see a road construction team fixing Morgan Street. Someone driving a tow-truck just drove past, taking a big Mercedes somewhere. There will always be a lot of jobs like those.
Now, it is true that many employers now use the college degree as a screening device. Lots of white collar jobs in fields such as banking and insurance now “require” a BA, but that requirement is just to screen out individuals whom the employers would rather not consider on the presumption that someone who hasn’t gone to college these days is of low trainability. That is not the same thing as saying that the demands of the job are such that it can only be done by someone with skills of knowledge that could only be garnered with years of college coursework.
The funny thing is that while the higher ed establishment keeps saying that college is more necessary than ever, it is being degraded to the point where for many students, having a BA puts them at roughly the same level as a high school diploma did fifty years ago. No problem — now they need grad school!
