I Get So Tired Of Saying This: A College Degree Is Not An Automatic Key To Success

I my local newspaper today was an article about how recent college graduates are having trouble finding jobs – as they always do on this hackneyed subject every summer. I and sick to distraction about this diatribe but I just have to repeat at each occasion of this subject, “A college degree is no guarantee of success!” There are just too many college degrees in the marketplace of jobs and as everyone knows whenever there is a surplus of anything it creates a devaluation of the commodity, in this case a diploma. Not only that; so many of them are Mickey Mouse subject areas to begin with. This year, however, they are prefacing it by trying to blame it on the slowing economy, but this is a totally bogus claim as the situation remains constant whether in good economies or bad.
The article went on to say, much to my amusement, that this lad graduated with a degree in political science and can’t find a job. Another held a degree in English and can’t find a job. A young lady had a degree in Art History and likewise couldn’t find a job in her concentration and settled for one as a waitress. I have to ask (and I wish I could do it in person): why is that a surprise to anyone but me? What can you do with a degree in any of these liberal arts subjects? If they had a credential in teaching they could at least do that but without one they can look forward to a bright career at Home Depot. I just have to add that the one with the degree in art history said she was looking to get into medical school. I chuckled to myself at this idiotic aspiration as she had about as much chance of getting into medical school (even in the Third World) with such an undergraduate degree as art history as would a ham and Swiss on pumpernickel!
Clearly these kids – as are all high school kids – are being lied to about what to expect by their guidance counselor, their families, and society in general if they actually believe that they can build a career with such backgrounds. It is as I have long said, that guidance counselors are nothing but pitchmen for the colleges and they push all high schoolers into college even if they have no business going in the first place. I also have recommended that we should at least be honest about this fact and allow guidance counselors to collect sales commissions from the colleges for every student they steer into higher education.
There are too many diplomas out there, too many of the degrees are useless degrees, the kids are misled and become dejected after years of hard work, their parents go into indebtedness to finance this fiasco, when vocational training in the skilled trades would be a much better advised path. When this disgusting pattern will change I do not know as I see no end in sight. But I can report that it is one of the greatest hoaxes and one of the greatest acts of tantamount thievery that has ever been perpetrated.