Degrees and Dollars (Krugman)

[somone]

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/07/opinion/07krugman.html

Degrees and Dollars
By PAUL KRUGMAN

It is a truth universally acknowledged that education is the key to economic success. Everyone knows that the jobs of the future will require ever higher levels of skill. That’s why, in an appearance Friday with former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, President Obama declared that “If we want more good news on the jobs front then we’ve got to make more investments in education.” But what everyone knows is wrong.

The day after the Obama-Bush event, The Times published an article about the growing use of software to perform legal research. Computers, it turns out, can quickly analyze millions of documents, cheaply performing a task that used to require armies of lawyers and paralegals. In this case, then, technological progress is actually reducing the demand for highly educated workers.

And legal research isn’t an isolated example. As the article points out, software has also been replacing engineers in such tasks as chip design. More broadly, the idea that modern technology eliminates only menial jobs, that well-educated workers are clear winners, may dominate popular discussion, but it’s actually decades out of date.

The fact is that since 1990 or so the U.S. job market has been characterized not by a general rise in the demand for skill, but by “hollowing out”: both high-wage and low-wage employment have grown rapidly, but medium-wage jobs — the kinds of jobs we count on to support a strong middle class — have lagged behind. And the hole in the middle has been getting wider: many of the high-wage occupations that grew rapidly in the 1990s have seen much slower growth recently, even as growth in low-wage employment has accelerated...

[Demeter]

1. And it's not that the work isn't there

It's that it is shipped out, or not done, or done for peanuts by people desperate enough to hang onto a temp job in hopes that someday, somewhere, someone will come to his senses and stop the madness...

[texshelters]

2. Like I keep saying, education is

great, but there are few jobs to land into after graduation. More degrees don't create more jobs.

Peace,
Tex Shelters

[Warpy]

4. No, but they are nicely creating a debtor class

I keep telling smart kids to learn skilled trades and take 2 year accounting courses at community colleges in their spare time. The debt load will be lower, the job opportunities a bit brighter (stuff always breaks down, thank you entropy), and the opportunity to advance into owning their own shop after a few years the path to financial security.

The kids graduating with tens of thousands of dollars in student loan debt represent a great deal of waste on all levels and a reason the economy can't be expected to grow at a decent rate for some time to come. When people are servicing a high debt load, they're not buying much of anything. When they can't find jobs that allow them to move out of Mom's house and pay that debt quickly, they're screwed and so is the economy.

And if you thought the housing loan biz was corrupt, wait until the student loan biz starts to implode.

[texshelters]

5. Correct

Community colleges will train you for far less and you can find jobs in many of the fields offered. Unless you are going to law school (there is a glut now) or become a doctor, the education is a much better deal at a CC. And if you want a liberal education, read books, fiction and non-fiction.

Peace,
Tex Shelters
http://www.texshelters.wordpress.com

[OHdem10]

3. Education is important and I have been a strong promoter.

However, there is a reality. We are very large country
with lots of people who need to support themeselves and
their families.

There is a reality which I never hear discussed. Yes we
want as many capable college graduates as possible.
However, there are going to large numbers of Americans
for whom College is not a fit.

We need a STRATEGY For MANAGING our Economy better. Had
we a strategy our Trade Policy would have been better
managed and our manufacturing base would not have been
hollowed out.

Yes, we must look out for our College Graduates but there
are many many many Americans who will not be able to
do the College Trip. We need a strategy. We have no
strategy. Conservative Economic Fundamentalism will
never provide an answer. Where are the Democrats???

There are College Graduates today who cannot find work
or if they do the pay is so little they must live
at home with their parents to survive.

I am all for giving as many kids as possible a college
education. I also would like to see the rest of America
prepared for a job that pays a living wage.

[GOPBasher]

6. This is so true and is scares the hell out of me.

With each passing decade, there is less and less economic incentive to become educated. This scares the hell out of me, because without the economic incentive, most people will not worry about getting an education. Then what? Has anyone seen "Idiocracy"? I think that's a plausible scenerio; if artificial intelligence is doing everything for us, we may be a very ignorant society. You think we elect poor leaders now? It'll be much worse when no one knows any history, economics, science, etc.