The New York Times' latest idiot commentator: Frank Bruni

[brentspeak]

Bruni must have attended a joint Council On Foreign Relations/US Chamber of Commerce weekend conference for how to get a job as an op-ed columnist by parroting Ruling Class talking points.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/29/opinion/sunday/bruni-the-imperiled-promise-of-college.html

The Imperiled Promise of College

By FRANK BRUNI
Published: April 28, 2012

(snip)

It doesn’t capture the grim reality for recent college graduates, whose leg up on their less educated counterparts isn’t such a sturdy, comely leg at the moment. According to an Associated Press analysis of data from 2011, 53.6 percent of college graduates under the age of 25 were unemployed or, if they were lucky, merely underemployed, which means they were in jobs for which their degrees weren’t necessary. Philosophy majors mull questions no more existential than the proper billowiness of the foamed milk atop a customer’s cappuccino. Anthropology majors contemplate the tribal behavior of the youngsters who shop at the Zara where they peddle skinny jeans.

I single out philosophy and anthropology because those are two fields — along with zoology, art history and humanities — whose majors are least likely to find jobs reflective of their education level, according to government projections quoted by the Associated Press. But how many college students are fully aware of that? How many reroute themselves into, say, teaching, accounting, nursing or computer science, where degree-relevant jobs are easier to find? Not nearly enough, judging from the angry, dispossessed troops of Occupy Wall Street.

The thing is, today’s graduates aren’t just entering an especially brutal economy. They’re entering it in many cases with the wrong portfolios. To wit: as a country we routinely grant special visas to highly educated workers from countries like China and India. They possess scientific and technical skills that American companies need but that not enough American students are acquiring.

“That’s why there are all these kinds of initiatives to make math and science fun,” Stephen J. Rose, a senior economist at Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce, reminded me last week. He was referring to elementary and high school attempts to prime more American students for college majors in those areas and for sectors of the job market where positions are more plentiful and lucrative. The center issued a report last year that noted that “not all bachelor’s degrees are the same” and that “while going to college is undoubtedly a wise decision, what you take while you’re there matters a lot, too.”

So what's Bruni's explanation for why there are so many unemployed American computer programmers, accountants, chemists, etc who've lost their jobs to cheaper overseas labor? Wrong major?

[zazen]

1. ARRRGHH--neoliberal corporatism wrapped in "STEM" education

I'm so SICK of this tripe.

And universities/education administrators are complicitous right now because they see that complicity in the faux STEM education crisis is the best and perhaps only way to get federal and foundation dollars.

[coalition_unwilling]

2. Glad I cancelled my NYTimes sub over the depredations of Judity Miller, et. al. Much

as I like and admire Paul Krugman, his is a lonely voice in the capitalist pig wilderness. Not worth giving them any more of my money.