Perceived Importance of College Hits New Low (gallup.com) 79
Gallup: Americans have been placing less importance on the value of a college education over the past 15 years, to the point that about a third (35%) now rate it as "very important." Forty percent think it is "fairly important," while 24% say it is "not too important."
When last asked to rate the importance of college in 2019, just over half of U.S. adults, 53%, said it was very important, but that was already lower than the 70% found in 2013 and 75% in 2010. Meanwhile, the percentage viewing college as not too important has more than doubled since 2019 and compares with just 4% in 2010. The views of parents of children under age 18 in the Aug. 1-20 poll are similar to the national average, with 38% rating college as very important, 40% somewhat important and 21% not too important.
When last asked to rate the importance of college in 2019, just over half of U.S. adults, 53%, said it was very important, but that was already lower than the 70% found in 2013 and 75% in 2010. Meanwhile, the percentage viewing college as not too important has more than doubled since 2019 and compares with just 4% in 2010. The views of parents of children under age 18 in the Aug. 1-20 poll are similar to the national average, with 38% rating college as very important, 40% somewhat important and 21% not too important.
Need to major in the right subject (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Need to major in the right subject (Score:4, Interesting)
It's not just that, it's a problem of too many students compared to the positions in the workplace. For some occupations there are more graduates annually than there are jobs in the whole profession. Communications and Journalism immediately springs to mind.
For a lot of college students, they go to college because due to societal pressure they're supposed to go to college. That doesn't mean that they'll end up any better off in the workforce after college though. And more insidiously it causes employers to place requirements or preferences for college graduates on jobs that are not served by that educational experience.
Re:Need to major in the right subject (Score:4, Interesting)
For a lot of college students, they go to college because due to societal pressure they're supposed to go to college. That doesn't mean that they'll end up any better off in the workforce after college though. And more insidiously it causes employers to place requirements or preferences for college graduates on jobs that are not served by that educational experience.
I see a parallel to this with what I've heard called the "MRS degree" as in young women going off to university to find a husband as the local options are generally unappealing. Because the goal isn't to learn a trade they get into activism, take bullshit classes, and maybe they find a husband (and earn the Mrs. title they wanted to get) before graduation. Even then their bullshit degree has value, or did have value in the past, because so many employers were fed up with the quality of high school education that they set the bar higher with a BS degree. By "BS degree" I mean two definitions can apply, Bachelor of Science, or that other common meaning for BS. Employers don't much care what the degree might be, so long as the applicant has demonstrated the intelligence and work ethic required to survive four years at university to get the BS degree they are looking for. This is in response to rules on employment that were deemed discriminatory in the past, employers responded with whatever they could use as a filter and not get sued over it.
Because students and employers were rarely needing any specific skills from the BS degree the applicants and universities responded with degree programs in all kinds of BS. So long as the students got a bit of party time, and that BS piece of paper, before settling down for work, marriage, or whatever they were pleased to pay for it. But with this came watered down enrollment criteria, and too many degree programs made more to entertain (for lack of a better word) than enlighten and educate the degree started to be as worthless as a high school diploma.
Young adults have been pressured to go to university, and universities have been pressured to hand out worthless degrees. Everyone got what they wanted, until they didn't. Universities could have decided to uphold their standards in spite of the pressure but few did so. They can blame nobody but themselves.
Re: Need to major in the right subject (Score:4, Insightful)
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I think the problems began when they started being used as a means of avoiding the draft instead of learning. Now it's just drinking practice and adult daycare.
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I think the problems began when they started being used as a means of avoiding the draft instead of learning. Now it's just drinking practice and adult daycare.
It was how the wealthy avoided the draft. The working class had to be more creative.
During the Vietnam era it was difficult for anyone of the working class to avoid military service. While they might not avoid military service they could likely avoid having to see combat. The National Guard was rarely called up for service in Vietnam so if someone had their number come up in the draft they could serve 2 years in the regular Army or Marines (one year training and one year in combat) as a draftee, or they
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Honestly thereÃ(TM)s enough miserable cardiologists out there, college shouldnÃ(TM)t be about vocational training it should be a bout expanding the limits and boundaries of human knowledge
The university as we know it came from a combination of three different groups reaching similar ends.
Many, perhaps most, universities today started as religious organizations to teach those intending to perform works of mercy. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] ) There's the spiritual works of mercy for clergy to preach, counsel, and comfort. There's the corporal works of mercy that involve providing food, water, shelter, clothing, medical care, and so on. This was clearly about vocational training tha
Re: Need to major in the right subject (Score:1)
The challenge is correctly forecasting a major or double major that will still be in demand 2-5 years after you finish so you can establish yourself. Additionally, having friends and family who can give good advice on the matter is valuable. Sure you can course correct, but itâ(TM)s still a risk.
I kept an eye on the highest paying jobs with high demand every year to make sure I wasnâ(TM)t going to be at extreme risk, but I still knew that something could change quickly and Iâ(TM)d be in a pre
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The challenge is correctly forecasting a major or double major that will still be in demand 2-5 years after you finish so you can establish yourself
For decades until very recently, at degree that combined in-demand-upon-enrollment technical studies with a solid business education would meet this criteria. If your graduate date coincided with a "job bust" of your technical skills, you could fall back to your business education. If it didn't, you were still more valuable that someone with the technical skills but little or no business education.
I say "until very recently" because ChatGPT-style AI is very "disruptive" to the entry-level job market so it
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I say "until very recently" because ChatGPT-style AI is very "disruptive" to the entry-level job market
I honestly am not convinced that AI has effectively replaced any meaningful job at any organization. I think AI is a cover and lots of places are not hiring because the economy is in a recession (we just don't see the full numbers yet).
Re: Need to major in the right subject (Score:4, Interesting)
The challenge is correctly forecasting a major or double major that will still be in demand 2-5 years after you finish so you can establish yourself
Personally, I think this is bad advice. The idea ought to be that the education is broad enough that you learn to learn. You have no way to predict what will be in demand in 2 years, 5 years, 10 years. If you are too specialized, you are likely to fail (specialization is helpful, but it really more important to be adaptable). Of course if you aren't learning to learn (which is probably far too typical), you will have problems. If you are learning things that are too narrow you probably aren't learning to learn - you are learning to copy.
When I was in college - in the 80s - I did something I liked but ultimately it wasn't my career. I changed course, after college, and did something else. I didn't study a subject to be profitable but I did wind up with a well-paying career. I made absolutely no attempt at forecasting what would be useful. Ironically, I think if I had chosen to train for my current job, I would likely be worse at it than I am - I bring a perspective that the majority in my profession don't have.
Of course this doesn't happen to everyone. It isn't stupid to look at job prospects and it can guide choices, but optimizing for money is a bad idea. In all likelihood, you will mis-predict and wind up in a bad situation (you personally might have correctly predicted). Learning to learn is by far the most valuable skill you can acquire at college. Many don't do this - and my guess is that it is mostly people who concentrate too much on "what will be in demand" - and they wind up in a bad situation.
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Too many people major in a subject they like, instead of ones that are in demand. So many people end up with a degree in an area with limited job prospects. Makes it look like college isn't worth it. Don't go to college JUST to go to college. You need a goal. Problem is few high school seniors are informed enough to make this decision, and we are seeing the results.
Sure but why go to college for something 'in demand' when it will make you miserable, or you won't be good at it, or just plain don't like it? We apparently will need less so why *not* just major in something you like? Then start a business with that degree. Anyway I can't tell you how many business people I've met with a 'worthless degree' like English or some other liberal arts major that end up working in Corposphere, because 75% of corpo jobs require *some* degree but not a business degree, unless you
Re:Need to major in the right subject (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't kbnow wnayone who has sucessfuly started a banana stand.
That said, any degree is better than no degree, all other things being equal, when someone is hiring. It shows you can complete tasks, can show dedication, and ostensibly are able to use critical thinking skills.
And what hasn't changed is that people with college degrees have a higher top-level of lifetime earnings than people without a degree. AI is changing everything ofd course, but we are still in the early stages of that.
Re:Need to major in the right subject (Score:5, Insightful)
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That said, any degree is better than no degree, all other things being equal, when someone is hiring.
The problem with getting a degree right out of high school is taking on debt for an education that might not provide enough return on investment to pay for itself.
I'd recommend a high school graduate to go to a trade school, join the military, or find some decent work for a bit before deciding to go to university or not. If their training as a truck driver, plumber, electrician, hair stylist, or whatever works out for them then that can be a career that pays off better than going to university. If that do
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Then start a business with that degree.
Statistically speaking, you've only got a 10% chance of your business lasting more than a decade, and 70% of small businesses fail within the first 5 years. Finding success as an entrepreneur is the exception, not the rule.
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Other then the entire education industry (and it is an industry) and the public sector education system alike spent decades telling people 'don't just go to college to get a job' sure.
I think there are few real issues:
1) The standards for secondary school graduations are to low. Yeah yeah there is so much more to know now; fine but whatever the causes are, diverting time/achievement standards away from mathematics and literacy hasn't delivered the outcome I think society was really looking for
2) We turned c
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Working through school (Score:1)
Thank God I got it at an affordable State school while working in the IT department, so I didn't mortgage my future and got useful experience.
"Working through school" is a good way to do it if you can swing it.
For some majors, undergraduate-research-assistant or industry-university-partnership between-semester jobs can help you graduate without any debt.
There are even some schools that have working during the school year to zero-out tuition [cofo.edu] as part of their educational model.
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>"Too many people major in a subject they like, instead of ones that are in demand."
It is more complex than that. Also, too many people major in a subject that is in demand FOR WHICH they ALSO have no interest and no talent. They end up dropping out, or getting by and hit the workforce and are pretty much useless. I have seen it. Having a "degree" is not a golden ticket to a happy and productive career. I am not sure if ever has been, but it is especially less so as each decade goes by.
So:
1) Determi
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1. Think what you want to do.
2. Think how you can get money by doing it. (there doesn't need to be market demand for it, if you can create that demand)
But I think the main problem is a demand for paid human labor is shrinking, because of automation. I am not talking about AI. I am talking about tractors, harvesters, factories, mines, transport, retail, almost everything. And areas where shrinking does not yet happen, are flooded by people from those other areas.
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I dont think thats really too great a problem. The point is usually to have *a* degree, unless your really focusing on getting the job in your f
What do they expect... (Score:5, Interesting)
...when many of the most over-exposed techbro billionaires didn't finish college?
What do they expect when the narrative that people have gone into deep debt in order to pay for college tuition for degrees that get them the same positions as those without college degrees have is so widespread and frankly, true?
What do they expect when so many states are basically violating their own public institution charters for affordable education and allowing tuition, or add-on fees in lieu of tuition hikes they aren't able to make, cause the cost of even a supposedly merit-based, public education has gotten to the point that someone can't earn enough to pay for school?
What do they expect when even having a college education doesn't provide a living wage to let one afford to buy a house or to have a decent apartment without requiring roommates in order to get by?
What do they expect when even with a degree and with experience, employers treat them only like liabilities and look to shed workers whenever possible, regardless of what sorts of ongoing contributions they make exceeding their salaries?
Re:What do they expect... (Score:5, Interesting)
...when many of the most over-exposed techbro billionaires didn't finish college?
Is this actually true? I know we have some high profile examples in history but even amongst those like Gates and Zuckerberg while they didn't finish college they started their companies with connections made in those colleges. Pretty sure guys like Thiel and Sacks and Andreesen all have degrees, some multiple. I feel like this is a meme more than actual truth.
Also I think the more interesting statistic would be amongst those billionaires and millionaires how many of them make sure their own kids go to college and the best college they can possibly attend. That i would bet has a pretty high hit rate.
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Silicon Valley tech people not finishing college is more Fire in the Valley era than anything more recent. Gates and Allen, Jobs, and Wozniak all dropped out. Ballmer was the only major connection made at college for any of them, so far as I know. Page, Brin, Bezos, Randolph, and Hastings all finished college, some with graduate degrees. Zuckerberg dropped out, but his going to college was central to his business model.
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Ahh i forgot Allen and Gates didn't meet at college but at their private prep school and they also took advantage to access to early computing systems at Univisity of Washington and Gates had some other family connections that also got him early access to computing systems of the time.
See, don't go to college kids just be born in particularly lucky circumstances.
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The most important takeaway today's kids should learn from the success of people like Gates, Musk, et. al. is - PICK YOUR PARENTS WISELY.
Selection Bias, Safety Net (Score:2)
Is this actually true?
I suspect it may be true if you look at the very high profile, top of the pile. However, these are clearly the exceptions and not the rule. How many people went to university only to drop out and found a company that failed or at least did not do anything like as well as Apple, Microsoft etc.? We do not know because nobody has ever heard of these people unless they failed spectacularly like Elizabeth Holmes [wikipedia.org].
I'd look at university (rather than college) as career insurance. Get a good degree in a useful d
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Plus you'll learn a bunch of stuff that you otherwise won't unless you are an incredible autodidact.
I've known a couple of people like that, bit "be amazing" isn't really a general purpose solution!
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"Get a good degree in a useful discipline and you have a safety net that will make it much easier to get a decent job. "
But will it?
Even if you get a degree in a useful subject there's no guarantee it will be useful in ten years. And if it is, you could just wait ten years and get the degree then if you need it.
Boomers told everyone to get a degree, so now the midwits rush to college and the college charges them as much as they can get away with, which is usually more than the lifetime benefit of the degree
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And if it is, you could just wait ten years and get the degree then if you need it.
With the demands of life being what they are, this is much easier said than done.
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But will it?
Yes. Name one main-stream science, engineering or medical degree from a decent university that was not helpful in getting a job 10, 20 or even 30 or more years ago.
A system which was once useful has basically become a ponzi scheme which serves no real purpose other than making colleges richer.
No it has not. What has happened though is that you now have a lot of for-profit private colleges setup to rip people off without providing them with a decent, or even useful, education. You also see established institutions suffering from government funding cutbacks adding some programs that prioritise profit over education. You are also start
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...when many of the most over-exposed techbro billionaires didn't finish college?
Is this actually true? I know we have some high profile examples in history but even amongst those like Gates and Zuckerberg while they didn't finish college they started their companies with connections made in those colleges. Pretty sure guys like Thiel and Sacks and Andreesen all have degrees, some multiple. I feel like this is a meme more than actual truth.
Also I think the more interesting statistic would be amongst those billionaires and millionaires how many of them make sure their own kids go to college and the best college they can possibly attend. That i would bet has a pretty high hit rate.
This.
Bill gates dropped out of Harvard, not a Cert II in Nail Care.
They also had wealthy parents.
As for rich people, yep, they are completely different. Former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson went to Eton collage and then Oxford because his family had connections and could afford the fees. He studied Literae humaniores (that's classic literature for the lay person, he read a bunch of old books) and at the end of which, his family used their connections to get him a job where he'd get a good sa
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but even amongst those like Gates and Zuckerberg while they didn't finish college they started their companies with
... money from mommy and daddy.
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Of course, an operator skilled enough to excavate at an archeological site is probably worth a lot more than average.
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The answer is still quite clear. Look at this, the part about changing attitudes is interesting in some way, but the facts pertinent to somebody making this decision is the graph of median annual earnings for those with vs. without a college degree. People obsess over small relative shifts in this size of the gap, but it's nowhere near d
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Don't misunderstand me, my wife has a bachelor's in mechanical engineering from MIT and has worked in the aerospace and defense industries for her whole career, and through her alumni club I've been friends with a bunch of other engineers and materials scientists. They have just about all done very well.
On the other hand I know two people with masters' degrees that are basically doing white-collar clerical work. I have no college degree, most of the people on my team don't have degrees, and I'm on the sam
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Think about blacksmithing.
A) You can learn by doing that iron hardens when you cool it down quickly, but you don't understand why. This gets the job done, as long as nothing changes.
B) With education you understand the reason and when you understand the reason, you can make modifications to fine tune the processes or create new processes to make something new.
Whether A or B is better depends on whether the world will change or not. If the world will change, it is better to understand the world, so you can a
Economy going down will do that (Score:2)
As the economy goes downhill, many people will question if the high cost of a college education is worth it, and that is one of the key reasons for this trend. We are also seeing the results of outsourcing so much to other countries, there is a lack of the entry level jobs that new graduates would normally try to get. So, having 3-5 years of experience is required, but there are few entry level jobs available to let people get that 3-5 years or experience. What is a person to do?
The feeling that it is
They did it to themselves (Score:2, Insightful)
Over the last few decades, universities have ratcheted their costs higher and higher, far outpacing inflation. They justified it by adding lots of tenured professors who never actually teach a class, but instead write papers and supervise "adjunct professors" and grad students, who actually do the teaching. They strong-armed the government into providing more and more student financial assistance, claiming that a college degree is as necessary as being employed.
Over time, all this hype built up, and like al
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Yes, you can get a good job without a college degree.
But if you are competing against someone *with* a college degree for that same job, that person will have an advantage in the selection process. You need to have something on your resume that outweighs that degree that other person (and potentially many other people) have.
Yes, college is too expensive. Yes, college is full of bloated administrative costs.
That changes nothing about the value of the education.
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I don't argue that education isn't, or can't be, valuable. It's just not as absolutely necessary as it's been made out to be.
The competitive value of a degree is also declining. It's most important for that first job. But after a couple of years of experience, nobody cares any more about what letters spell your degree.
Well, yes, there are some fields where an education is critical, such as medicine.
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Yes, you can get a good job without a college degree.
I think you're confusing the knowledge gained in college being a prerequisite to understanding how to do the job, with landing the interview in the first place. If the education section of your resume ends at "high school diploma", any employer that pays better than the wages of barista at Starbucks is just going to shitcan your application without even looking at it.
The major exception being physically demanding jobs. Want to crawl through attics, work on a fishing boat, or a filthy oil rig? Yeah, that'
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If the education section of your resume ends at "high school diploma", any employer that pays better than the wages of barista at Starbucks is just going to shitcan your application without even looking at it.
Unless you've got something equivalent or better to compensate.
Resume:
Work experience:
2020-2025 Senior Director of Widgets, Fortune 500 Company
2010-2020 Various positions of increasing responsibility in my parent's medium-sized Widget-making company, ending as Junior Vice President
Education:
2006-2010 Local High School, 4.0 GPA
In this case, the person had something unavailable to most: A guaranteed placement in a company that would nurture his career right out of high school. 10 years later he knew he had
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It's good to see that you agree that the degree is only relevant as a line on your resume.
Wouldn't it be simpler to let people just buy Official Certificates of Smartness to put on their resume and avoid all the hassle of studying things that they will never use?
Also, your original comment isn't true. Small companies tend to be more interested in what people can do than what they have on their resume. I also know companies who have a blacklist of colleges they won't hire from so you'd be more likely to get
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College proves you have the aptitude and discipline to stick with something. It also differentiates you from everybody and their brother who thought they could take the express lane right into their career.
Yes, some people do find success without college, but they're the outliers. And relying on being among those that beat the odds means you're going to have a lot of people applying for McDonald's, wondering how their plans went awry.
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Won't that also depend greatly on what their degree is in? If you and I are up for the same IT position, how much of an advantage do you think my political science degree will be?
If we are both 22, but you spent the last 4 years working on a political science degree and I spent the last 4 years working one or more no-post-high-school-education-required non-IT-related jobs, the answer will probably depend on the "prospects for advancement" in the company and whether those prospects would benefit from someone who had a 4-year non-technical degree.
If we are both 22 but you spent the last 4 years in something related to IT or to something else that gets the hiring manager's attention (s
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They justified it by adding lots of tenured professors
The number of tenured positions has fallen, not risen [aaup.org], so no.
The money is going to executives and consultants, not educators.
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According to your own source:
the number of tenured and tenure-track faculty across the system grew from 9,800 FTEs in 2011 to 10,800 FTEs in 2021 (a 9 percent increase)
https://www.aaup.org/academe/i... [aaup.org]
The article argues that the density is down, only because the number of lecturer faculty grew even more.
the number of lecturer faculty grew from 6,000 FTEs in 2011 to 9,000 FTEs in 2021 (a 50 percent increase)
Both statistics are a problem, and have contributed to the skyrocketing cost of education.
Are you going to argue that before 2011 (the starting year for the article's research) that we didn't have good college education available to students, because they didn't have enough tenured (or other) professors? Are you arguing that education is in a
Why have a career (Score:2)
When you can invest in crypto or be an influence?
The new generation views corporate jobs as a dead end. There is no loyalty from the company. There is no stability in any industry. So why should they be expected to invest in a specialized education that is going to be worthless in 5 or 10 years?
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There's only so long you can live in your parents' basement. Eventually they'll be forced to get real jobs, and when they realize that college is still necessary for everything that doesn't beat your body to into an early grave or pay fast food wages, then comes the surprised Pikachu face.
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If you don't have to split the house with siblings, people can and do live with their parents until their parents die. And then you end up in a situation that my family is in. The family house is being lived in by one member who can't afford to even pay the electric bill, let alone the taxes. And we end up trying to keep the house from being taken by paying her bills, without the a path to evict her.
As for people realizing college or vocation training is necessary for the standard of living they want to ach
Learning is easier while you are young (Score:3, Insightful)
If you plan in "eventually" getting that degree, it's going to be easier to "go straight on through college after high school" than it will be to "work for a decade then go back."
Whether it's an apprenticeship, community college, a less-challenging college/major, or a hard-core-brain-buster degree, it's a lot easier to learn new things before mid-life than after. There's some brain science to back this up, but I don't have the references handy, sorry. Look up "fluid intelligence" and "crystallized intelligence" and their relationship to age.
For most people, it's also a lot easier to manage your time before you have a "full time job" or are raising children.
That's not to say you can't go back to school full-time to get your Ph.D. when you are 70, but it's going to be a lot easier if you do it earlier in life.
I skipped College (Score:2)
Unless College will burden you with huge debt you will likely benefit from having gone and hopefully learnt something.
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He's way smarter than he lets on, just didn't do well in classrooms.
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He beat the odds, good on him.
The most successful people I know all went to college. The least successful people I know all thought a high school diploma was good enough, and that they'd be able to just bootstrap a career like their Boomer parents might've done, or start their own businesses (and they ended up on the wrong side of that 90% statistic, no surprise there).
Degree Isn't related to the Major (Score:1)
https://www.washingtonpost.com... [washingtonpost.com]
This is old (2013) but if what you go for doesn't match what you're doing then theoretically its a waste.
Additional points
1. College is for learning to think not learning a job, so does it matter if the degree doesn't match the work
2. Another study said its a higher percentage that relates to the major for graduate or professional degree, vs Bachelor
Perceived Importance of College In US Hits New Low (Score:3)
Is that really how it be? (Score:2)
Are they not perceiving importance or value?
Salt (Score:2)
Self taught brain surgeon (Score:3)
College is needed for STEM .. especially engineering and physics, because most people need to be told to do all the requisite math. Yes you can learn mechanical engineering from online videos and books.. in fact that would no doubt make the best mechanical engineers .. but then only about 1/3rd of humans would be able to do that without the motivation and structure college provides.
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I think that you should probably understand that the USA wants to be the administration for the entire planet. Citizens from the USA are a liability in this scenario as they need to be fed and such... but they don't want to do that. They want to get on with the business of administrating the planet for their own benefit.
No mention that AI is eating ... (Score:2)
Kids see other kids graduate with debt, and can't find work ?
I'd think twice too
Distain for Experts (Score:1)
Is this partly related to the rise in distain for academics and experts in the Trump era?
Avoiding university can be a good thing (Score:1)
Republicans vs. Democrats (Score:2)
There's a clear and obvious decrease in views of college as important across all demographics. However, the most stark difference across demographic groups is Republicans versus Democrats, where the percentages responding with very/fairly/not important were 20/39/39% and 42/49/9% for Republicans and Democrats, respectively. The likelihood of not viewing college as important is 4 times greater for Republicans than Democrats. This factor seems so strong that it would have been interesting to test how stron
The public live in the REAL world. (Score:2)
Far too many people were told to go into debt and attend college and get that magic degree, only to find themselves in debt, and working jobs that either require no degree or do not line-up with the degree they got. Also, most people who went to college had the experience of being required to take a bunch of junk courses they had no interest in, and which were unrelated tho their majors, supposedly in the interest of becoming a "well-rounded" person - but are aware that many of these classes were more of a
Cor not Cor (Score:2)
Americans HAVE SAID THAT THEY have been placing less importance on the value of a college education over the past 15 years, to the point that about a third (35%) now rate it as "very important." Forty percent think it is "fairly important," while 24% say it is "not too important."
No survey ever tells you what anyone believes. It only tells you what they SAY about the subject. It's an important distinction, and makes the survey even more damning.
Obligatory KeroNgb Reference (Score:1)
Who was polled? (Score:2)
Let's see, MAGAts are anti-actual-education. They're sure that one term of college will steal their kids, and make them leftists.
Meanwhile, assholes in HR, who don't know what the company does, or what the hiring manager actually needs, add more and more requirements for degrees and certifications.
well, duh (Score:2)
Well, "college" has been redefined to include so-called "community colleges" which used to be called "junior colleges" and are actually high-school continuation courses, or at best, vocational schools. Meanwhile the bottom-tier colleges that used to be called "teachers' colleges" have been rebranded into "universities." Then, of course, now that computers have replaced typing pools, all those liberal arts grads don't really have much job prospects. There are only so many marketing jobs.