I am sorry to contradict Rush Limbaugh again but I really have to. I say this with some pain because I agree with him mostly but this is the second time I find myself at loggerheads with him. Again it relates to something which he takes a simplistic assumption on. Last week he was railing against a study published by academia that we need to lower the expectations of college students. Rush expended much energy and air time debunking this on the grounds that it was due to “pointy-headed liberal academics wishing to lower society’s expectations”. I have often spoken and written about the subject of college education and its applicability in the current job market.
As I say this I have to qualify my statements that I am a part time academic with several advanced degrees who has seen and currently sees the huge let down my students will face upon graduation solely because they have been sold a bill of goods that once armed with their degrees anything they want will come to them. I am here to tell you all that this is a lie and a cruel one at that. I also must say that I come to this issue with very conservative credentials and the moral authority of a conservative, perhaps even more conservative that Rush himself.
Having said all of that allow me to continue with business at hand. Not only do I see the results of this “cruel lie” today but for nearly 30 years I worked in an occupation wherein I saw lots of college students on their summer jobs. Their fields of study ran the gamut from business, engineering, medicine, law, education, communication, arts, and many more. Almost without exception those energetic kids rarely found jobs (let alone careers) once they graduated within their fields of study. I can say that from what I have witnessed a degree in political science, fine arts, communications, education, liberal arts, English, history, and others will get you a career in Walmart.
The exceptions are almost always those who studied business or engineering whom nearly always find jobs plentiful on those areas. Another big lie is a career in the environment. I knew scores of young people studying this subject in great schools including Cornell and wound up as welfare caseworkers or something. This was the career I had for more than a quarter century and I do not recommend it. In fact, I often get called upon for high school career days and I go way out of my way to drill into the students that it might sound nice to work outdoors with Bambi and butterflies but; 1. The jobs aren’t there. 2. What jobs are there pay very poorly. 3. They are nothing like the idealistic careers guidance counselors and college recruiters tell everyone they are.
In addition to all of this I have to reiterate that too many people go to college and too few are entering the skilled trades. And by the way, many of these young folks I earlier referred to, once being disillusioned by the school of life after graduation for a few years, gravitate to the carpenter’s union apprenticeship program, the US Postal Service, UPS or others. It is a very bitter pill for them to swallow that they wasted their time and their parent’s money with four years in college.
As long as I am on the subject I might as well impart another news flash. College kids should be informed that it does not matter if you are a 4.0 or a 2.0 cumulative student and it makes no difference what honor societies were belonged to because no one ever asks what your grades were or how many honor societies you belonged to in college. With all of my degrees no one has ever asked me that either in an interview or even in idle conversation so kids, don’t worry about all that effluvium.
So contrary to what Rush Limbaugh and college recruiters are telling us, we do have to stop lying to our young people and begin telling them that they have more options besides college and if they do go to college that they had better think longer about what they study. Otherwise they might just as well go down to Shop Rite today and get a jump on their career stocking shelves and get a four year head start on everybody else who will end up there anyway in a short while.