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[–] The_Only_Other 0 points 4 points (+4|-0) ago  (edited ago)

The idea that only people who go for useless majors end graduating without job prospects is a lie.

I was a Mathematics and Computer Science major with a >3.8 GPA. I would have had to go into debt to continue into my third year. I applied for Internships my entire second year (I can't remember how many but it was well over 500, including applications to internships closely related to my study, internships in engineer or other technical fields, and inquires to companies that hadn't even posted that they were looking for interns) and ended with nothing back. I talked to the head of every engineering and science department at my college and was basically told that none of their students were getting internships or jobs after graduating, most were dropping out and the ones who could afford it were applying to graduate school. I dropped out rather than go into (massive amounts of) debt.

One of my friends had to apply to grad school as a Comp. Sci. major because he couldn't find any work (he ended up getting a job at Google and worked there until Microsoft poached him. He makes more money a year than most people will ever see in their life and constantly gets new job offers from competitors, so it's not like he's incompetent) and a most of my other friends who were engineering majors ended up going into the military because they couldn't find any work.

In the US, getting into a good school (not good academically, but a school with good industry contacts) is far more likely to ensure later success than any particular major (and as a side-note, I actually did get into a REALLY good school but my psychopath father refused to submit his tax information for the FAFSA and I would have ended up paying $40,000 out of pocket a year to attend). Granted, I was in college post-2008 so that does color the situation. But working as a hiring manager for a construction and engineering company later in life the number of engineer students I interviewed who couldn't seem to get a job makes me think things haven't changed that much.

The problem with the US educational system is multi-pronged:

  • Our early educational system (elementary to high school) fucking sucks. There are two many reasons to get into as to why that is, but it should be an adequate education for most non-professional, non-trade jobs and it doesn't even come close.

  • Because of the first point, employers want college graduates. It acts as a way to filter out incompetent people (or at least it used to, I've heard of a number of employers giving up on this model recently). Therefore you need a degree to get almost any job.

  • There is a limit to how many professional/technical/research/teaching graduates you need in society. Whether this be for science and engineering majors or even English literature majors this holds true. But there are too many people who want them, we let everyone who wants to try for them, and those who may be very qualified but can't afford the cost are tossed out of the running immediately. The rest compete for a very small number of positions and most end up as Starbucks Baristas with Masters degrees.

  • Kids would rather take the risk and go to college than a trade school because there is a greater reward if you make it to the other end and people in the US tend to have an inflated view of themselves; they are sure it will be them who actually makes it through and gets that dream job.

The solution is also multi-pronged, and quite simple in my opinion:

  • Improve early education and make a multi-tiered specialized educational system. You can identify the more students with an aptitude for science or language or whatever and put them on a more advanced educational track.

  • Take those who do very well in school and send them to college for free. Society needs the best of the best and those that have proven themselves shouldn't be burdened by whatever class they were born into.

  • Send the ones who do well but not as well as their top tier counterparts to trade or technical schools, again for free.

  • Everyone else who wants to go to school can take the risk and pay the way themselves or educate themselves in their free time.

  • Stop running schools on a for-profit model. It causes them to waste money on attracting students by building a bunch of stupid fucking amenities that add nothing to the educational value of the school but drive the cost through the roof.

Most of the rest of the western world has an educational model similar to the points above and they all work much better than our system.

Edit: Some typos and grammar