Jobs Not Needed
BY CLARENCE BARR, II
The other day I watched a news report that said a majority of millennial aged college graduates (individuals born between 1981 and 1996) were working in areas that didn’t require college degrees. Places like restaurants, clothing stores and telemarketing firms.
The reasoning, they explained, involved a multitude of factors including: a struggling economy, an already over-crowded workplace, people eligible for retirement holding on longer and companies taking advantage of the surplus of talent and being even more selective in their hiring. According to the statistics, it is a trend that doesn’t show signs of slowing down anytime soon.
The report led me to reflect on the idea that it may be time to re-evaluate how higher education is prioritized to young people. That is not to say that it’s importance should be lessened. But the reality is that we may have reached a point where it should be re-packaged for a new era.
Twenty-five years ago we probably wouldn’t think about having this conversation. Back then it was cool just to go to college and hopefully graduate.
You could major in almost anything. As long as you received a diploma, chances were that you could find a decent job anywhere.
Of course, that was then. As it stands now, that strategy appears to be as played out as the Dwayne-Wayne styled glasses that were also very popular at the time.
Today, outside of certain fields like medicine, bio-engineering, pharmaceuticals and computer programming, unless a person has an inside track, the average 4-year college degree seems to carry little more weight than a high school diploma. In this current environment, pursuing a master’s or doctorate becomes almost mandatory to remain in contention. And even then there is no guarantee that a job will be available.
For the typical kid coming out of high school contemplating on attending a college or university without a scholarship and who may not be doctor or engineer material, this translates to him or her seriously deciding whether or not it’s worth it to take a $50,000+ hit on his or her credit while taking a gamble on low paying, low demand fields of study like sociology, physical education or psychology. Degrees that, often times, lead graduates into occupations where the top salary may not even equal what they owe.
For that student it may be better for them to go into a different direction, something along the lines of entrepreneurship.
Steering everyone toward traditional secondary education just for the sake of receiving a secondary education only benefits two groups…. The schools and the banks handing out the guaranteed loans who make out like bandits during the process.
I mean, if they’re going to borrow money and go into debt anyway, it would seem to make better sense for them to use that money to start their own businesses as opposed to the alternative. Walking across a stage to receive a piece of paper only to find themselves, a year later, managing a Foot Locker.
As society becomes more technologically advanced jobs will continue to become even more scarce. Instead of continuing to raise our children to be little more than worker bees in conditions that make worker bees highly expendable, going forward, it may be a better plan to teach them ways to own the hive.
The future is here. Pandering for someone else to offer you work is slowly going the route of CD players and car ignitions that require keys.
The best way to succeed involves being self-employed and self-sustaining. Anything less in this new paradigm developing around us is a recipe for disappointment, failure and long-term parking in the lower middle-class section of life.
Anyone wanting to contact Clarence Barr can reach him at: Clarence Barr, II, 43110-018; P. O. Box 7007; Marianna, FL 32447-7007. Reality On Ice is © by the Florida Sentinel Bulletin Publishing Company.
