Greg Ip of the WSJ writes, ‘A four-year college degree, seen for generations as a ticket to a better life, is no longer enough to guarantee a steadily rising paycheck.” The article (free via AZCentral) then goes on to highlight the declining value of a college degree in the US.
There are many factors behind this (the massification of college degrees, technological change, economic change, etc.), but what the article neglects to mention is that a degree only has value if you know how to leverage it. In other words, you must have an entrepreneurial mindset.
The people covered in the article bitch and moan that their degree is not getting them jobs that they once could easily get. Duh! In order for your education to work for you, you must work to differentiate it, sell it, etc. Again, you must have an entrepreneurial mindset.
So even if you are not starting a new firm and plan to take a more traditional career path, you must be able to spot opportunities, organize people and resources, and basically make your own destiny, if you are going to hold a position that the author and others once considered ‘guaranteed.’
At WSJ they have some other interesting links related to this idea of the declining value of a college degree.
3 responses so far ↓
Tim Berry // July 22, 2008 at 2:08 am |
I’m with you. It’s not a union card; it’s an education. If you do it right you learn to think, listen, analyze, communicate, and, we hope, get things done. You might even get help figuring out which are the right things to get done. You live better as a result, whether or not you make more money. Usually there’s a correlation, but not always.
I don’t believe we measure the value of an education in dollars.
Tim
mieke // July 25, 2008 at 2:47 pm |
When did education and degrees get so messed up? When employers especially school districts got too lazy to come up with ways to hire and evaluate value and productivity of prospective teachers and employers.
A degree isn’t a union card, nor is it a guarantee of anyone’s value, intelligence or ability to get the job done.
Is college worth it? | Business in General // July 25, 2008 at 10:36 pm |
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