What worries parents, teachers and employers is that the latest crop of adults wants to postpone growing up. At a time when they should be graduating, entering the work force and starting families of their own, the twentysomething crowd is balking at those rites of passage. A prime reason is their recognition that the American Dream is much tougher to achieve after years of housing-price inflation and stagnant wages. Householders under the age of 25 were the only group during the 1980s to suffer a drop in income, a decline of 10%. One result: fully 75% of young males 18 to 24 years old are still living at home, the largest proportion since the Great Depression.
In a TIME/CNN poll of 18- to 29-year-olds, 65% of those surveyed agreed it will be harder for their group to live as comfortably as previous generations. While the majority of today's young adults think they have a strong chance of finding a well-paying and interesting job, 69% believe they will have more difficulty buying a house, and 52% say they will have less leisure time than their predecessors. Asked to describe their generation, 53% said the group is worried about the future.
― I can feel it in my spiritual hat (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, 2 September 2011 17:17 (1 year ago) Permalink
69% believe they will have more difficulty buying a house, and 52% say they will have less leisure time than their predecessors.
that much turned out to be true!
― iatee, Friday, 2 September 2011 17:19 (1 year ago) Permalink
Because they are fewer in number, today's young adults have the power to wreak havoc in the workplace. Companies are discovering that to win the best talent, they must cater to a young work force that is considered overly sensitive at best and lazy at worst. During the next several years, employers will have to double their recruiting efforts. According to American Demographics, the pool of entry-level workers 16 to 24 will shrink about 500,000 a year through 1995, to 21 million. These youngsters are starting to use their bargaining power to get more of what they feel is coming to them. They want flexibility, access to decision making and a return to the sacredness of work-free weekends. "I want a work environment concerned about my personal growth," says Jennifer Peters, 22, one of the youngest candidates ever to be admitted to the State Bar of California. "I don't want to go to work and feel I'll be burned out two or three years down the road."
seems a little different to me!
― iatee, Friday, 2 September 2011 17:20 (1 year ago) Permalink
Euler what is your field?
― Do not go gentle into that good frogbs (silby), Friday, 2 September 2011 17:21 (1 year ago) Permalink
yeah sure there are differences - I haven't read the article in 20 years fwiw
― I can feel it in my spiritual hat (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, 2 September 2011 17:22 (1 year ago) Permalink
gen x: lazymillennials: overeducated, prob a little lazy, mostly just fucked
― iatee, Friday, 2 September 2011 17:24 (1 year ago) Permalink
that article feels more like "aimless 20 somethings not sure of what they want to do", today's version of "aimless 20 somethings WANT to do something but finding all doors shut"
― dayo, Friday, 2 September 2011 17:25 (1 year ago) Permalink
yeah as far as I can tell In This Economy™ what used to be entry-level jobs all advertise as requiring 3 years experience. I somehow have gotten a few interviews anyway but every time one peters out I just get less interested in applying for more programming jobs and more interested in killing time until grad school.
― Do not go gentle into that good frogbs (silby), Friday, 2 September 2011 17:25 (1 year ago) Permalink
I'm a phil-ah-soh-pher
which btw shouldn't be conflated with "the liberal arts" b/c our students aren't usually the dreamy-wanna-write-a-story types, rather they're the mass debater types & go on to do analytic work & typically get pretty well paid (unless they go to grad school obv)
― Euler, Friday, 2 September 2011 17:54 (1 year ago) Permalink
you mean @ your school or philosophy majors in general
― iatee, Friday, 2 September 2011 17:55 (1 year ago) Permalink
Not really involved in the discussion but here's a link that might be of interest - http://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2011/08/31/historical-trends-in-college-tuition/
The linked post about the retained value of a college degree is also worth a look.
― pullapartsquirrel (Jenny), Friday, 2 September 2011 17:55 (1 year ago) Permalink
both xp unless we're talking continental philosophers w/ all that crit theory bullshit & that's just dreamy-wanna-write-a-story stuff that isn't gonna get you anywhere
obv I am a pawn of the status quo
― Euler, Friday, 2 September 2011 17:56 (1 year ago) Permalink
I dunno I think their prospects aren't much different from english majors or whatever, they just have a higher tendency to go to law school
― iatee, Friday, 2 September 2011 17:58 (1 year ago) Permalink
if I owned 'generic business' I would totally hire a bunch of philosophy majors tho, seems like an undervalued asset (as long as I didn't have to talk to them)
― iatee, Friday, 2 September 2011 18:00 (1 year ago) Permalink
what if 'generic business' was a 'medicinal marijuana shop'
― dayo, Friday, 2 September 2011 18:01 (1 year ago) Permalink
fwiw philosophy majors rank in the top three nationally on the LSAT, GMAT and GRE pretty much yearly; our only competition is physics & math iirc
― Euler, Friday, 2 September 2011 18:02 (1 year ago) Permalink
xp lol
― Euler, Friday, 2 September 2011 18:03 (1 year ago) Permalink
Got turned down for a job I had two interviews for today. FUCK THIS SHIT.
― gay socialists smoking mushrooms with their illegal gardeners (a hoy hoy), Friday, 2 September 2011 18:03 (1 year ago) Permalink
xps to Euler: see I don't like the idea of denigrating "the liberal arts" as a thing, I legitimately believe that the liberal arts (including liberal study of the sciences) are the foundation of a democratic society; this is why high school is at least in part a weird mini liberal arts education. College as a job-training-and-credentialing exercise is just going to become a worse and worse value proposition (though it honestly isn't now, as college grads are still outperforming non-college-grads in the job market, modulo debt I guess), especially because the academy moves so slowly that by the time it has figured out how to prepare students for the economy of 2011 it'll be 2038.
a hoy hoy: YEAH NO KIDDIN
― Do not go gentle into that good frogbs (silby), Friday, 2 September 2011 18:06 (1 year ago) Permalink
this is why high school is at least in part a weird mini liberal arts education it's becoming less of this all the time
― remy bean, Friday, 2 September 2011 18:08 (1 year ago) Permalink
yeah I would like to see more discussion of the value of a liberal arts education itt. think a lot of ppl (though not all) who post to ILX prob have a degree in the liberal arts and went to liberal arts colleges?
― dayo, Friday, 2 September 2011 18:08 (1 year ago) Permalink
did anybody actually have 'shop class' in high school?
my hs had it, I didn't take it
― iatee, Friday, 2 September 2011 18:08 (1 year ago) Permalink
^^^we did and I managed to studiously avoid all of them
― I can feel it in my spiritual hat (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, 2 September 2011 18:09 (1 year ago) Permalink
we also had an auto-repair type class, I think
― iatee, Friday, 2 September 2011 18:10 (1 year ago) Permalink
the stuff I learned in my hs journalism class - particularly how to write, use a computer, and lay things out - came in much handier professionally than anything I learned in college, really. but liberal arts degrees/colleges are not really about learning a specific subject matter imho, they're about training your mind to think critically and work in different contexts.
I would definitely be making more money in the same industry I'm in now if I'd gotten an engineering degree, but I always hated math.
― I can feel it in my spiritual hat (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, 2 September 2011 18:11 (1 year ago) Permalink
school is awful - full of false promises and useless workmemorization and paper achievementsany kind of real sense of desires to learn or create are put to the side
― Birth Control is Sinful in the ILE Marriages (Latham Green), Friday, 2 September 2011 18:12 (1 year ago) Permalink
yeah 'critical thinking' is the rote response to people who question the value of a liberal arts education
I'm still trying to think through the true value of the ability to 'think critically' in the job market
― dayo, Friday, 2 September 2011 18:14 (1 year ago) Permalink
dayo it was called the vocational wing in my hs
also folks, this is my line of work and i have a lot of relevant things to say, but i would really rather not discuss it publicly for a variety of reasons
xp - critical thinking is REALLY IMPORTANT esp if you don't have very good critical thinking skills
― i drive a wood paneled station dragon (La Lechera), Friday, 2 September 2011 18:15 (1 year ago) Permalink
Was v sad when I had to give up woodshop b/c there was no room for it in the college-prep curriculum. It was down to shop or band, and marching band won.
Just think, I could have grown up to be a stoner!
― brb recalibrating my check engine light (Laurel), Friday, 2 September 2011 18:16 (1 year ago) Permalink
I tend to take Dewey's line about the value of a liberal-arts-education in creating & nourishing a populace able to handle democracy
+ DFW's take in his Kenyon graduation address
― Euler, Friday, 2 September 2011 18:17 (1 year ago) Permalink
oh I totally agree that critical thinking is implicitly and in and of itself a valuable skill, LL - but that's not how all employers see it
― dayo, Friday, 2 September 2011 18:18 (1 year ago) Permalink
ps - i had shop class in middle school
it's an important skill to have as a human being, not as an employee
― i drive a wood paneled station dragon (La Lechera), Friday, 2 September 2011 18:18 (1 year ago) Permalink
I think that the american liberal arts education actually contributes substantial economic value to this country - overall we had a much more adaptable job market in the late 20th century than most of the world. more engineers would be good too, but an economy can't be 50% engineers (and really would anyone want to live in a dystopia like that?) most contemporary jobs don't require specific training and in better economic times can be learned on-the-job.
said it in the other thread but the bigger problems are:a. jobs! (I know underemployed engineers from good schools!)b. cost
― iatee, Friday, 2 September 2011 18:19 (1 year ago) Permalink
i do not work at a liberal arts school btw
― i drive a wood paneled station dragon (La Lechera), Friday, 2 September 2011 18:20 (1 year ago) Permalink
liberal arts school can't really be blamed for 0 net job growth this month
― iatee, Friday, 2 September 2011 18:21 (1 year ago) Permalink
last month, rather
schools
gonna put that one on the Ivies, as usual
wanna get some class resentment going on this thread also
― Euler, Friday, 2 September 2011 18:22 (1 year ago) Permalink
ime the critical thinking tends to be "i wish i hadn't done a useless humanities degree"
― Once Were Moderators (DG), Friday, 2 September 2011 18:22 (1 year ago) Permalink
The public university at which I work has increased tuition and enrollment geometrically in the last two years to compensate for evaporating state funding, with no commensurate strengthening of infrastructure.
The quality of students haven't changed much except I'm seeing more examples of mediocrities: girls getting psych degrees as a time killer before marriage because their parents press on them the importance of a college education, guys getting business degrees because, well, they want to start their own franchises, and journalism majors who don't realize how useless that degree is and always was.
― Anakin Ska Walker (AKA Skarth Vader) (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 2 September 2011 18:22 (1 year ago) Permalink
true everywhere
― Once Were Moderators (DG), Friday, 2 September 2011 18:23 (1 year ago) Permalink
an economy can't be 50% engineers (and really would anyone want to live in a dystopia like that?)
Would it be like this?
― brb recalibrating my check engine light (Laurel), Friday, 2 September 2011 18:24 (1 year ago) Permalink
working nights did not come in handy today. someone called me about an hour into my sleep (10? 11am?) and I gave off the just the most generic dozed pitch, can't even remember what company they were calling from.
― gay socialists smoking mushrooms with their illegal gardeners (a hoy hoy), Friday, 2 September 2011 18:24 (1 year ago) Permalink
lol @ 50% engineer economy; welcome to China :(
― dayo, Friday, 2 September 2011 18:24 (1 year ago) Permalink
― Euler, Friday, September 2, 2011 1:22 PM
ultimately we're being fucked by people in dc and wall street, lots of them went to ivies, all of them are rich, it's not completely hors-sujet
― iatee, Friday, 2 September 2011 18:25 (1 year ago) Permalink
all we needs are farmers and abstract artists
― Birth Control is Sinful in the ILE Marriages (Latham Green), Friday, 2 September 2011 18:27 (1 year ago) Permalink
problem with america is not enough grant woods
― remy bean, Friday, 2 September 2011 18:31 (1 year ago) Permalink
"school is awful - full of false promises and useless workmemorization and paper achievementsany kind of real sense of desires to learn or create are put to the side"
i really view this as a positive when applied to the evil ambitions of... a lot of people frankly. what other civilizing institutions do we have other than compulsory education? I agree with Thiel in the sense that a lot of motivated people would be personally, selfishly better off not pursuing advanced degrees and doing startups straight from high school, but I disagree that it's a net positive for society.
― Philip Nunez, Friday, 2 September 2011 18:31 (1 year ago) Permalink
or you can replace teachers w/ online courses
― iatee, Friday, 10 May 2013 00:06 (1 week ago) Permalink
and not spend any money
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/05/how-colleges-are-selling-out-the-poor-to-court-the-rich/275725/
And here's the key bit: Many colleges, he argues, appear to be playing an "elaborate shell game," relying on federal grants to cover the costs of needy students while using their own resources to furnish aid to richer undergrads.
"With their relentless pursuit of prestige and revenue," Burd writes, "the nation's public and private four-year colleges and universities are in danger of shutting down what has long been a pathway to the middle class for low-income and working-class students."
― j., Sunday, 12 May 2013 20:57 (1 week ago) Permalink
Laptop U - The New Yorkerhttp://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2013/05/20/130520fa_fact_heller?currentPage=all
― I will forlornly return to my home planet soon (dandydonweiner), Monday, 13 May 2013 22:54 (1 week ago) Permalink
There was a study out a few days ago suggesting that only six or seven percent of MOOC courses are finished by students on average.
Sepetately, this was moderately interesting on the US side:
http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/features/feature-social-arts-trample-liberal-arts/2003658.article
“One of the consequences of the invisibility of social class in the US is that women in the wannabe category didn’t understand how much more in the way of resources some of the other young women they were trying to keep up with had,” Armstrong continues. “It took us the whole of the study to realise that the consequences of partying very hard would vary so dramatically.” Seemingly small differences in social background were often greatly magnified through this process.
― хуто-хуторянка (ShariVari), Monday, 13 May 2013 23:11 (1 week ago) Permalink
But that is not the kind of higher education most Americans know. The vast majority of people who get education beyond high school do so at community colleges and other regional and nonselective schools. Most who apply are accepted. The teachers there, not all of whom have doctorates or get research support, may seem restless and harried. Students may, too. Some attend school part time, juggling their academic work with family or full-time jobs, and so the dropout rate, and time-to-degree, runs higher than at élite institutions. Many campuses are funded on fumes, or are on thin ice with accreditation boards; there are few quadrangles involved. The coursework often prepares students for specific professions or required skills. If you want to be trained as a medical assistant, there is a track for that. If you want to learn to operate an infrared spectrometer, there is a course to show you how. This is the populist arm of higher education. It accounts for about eighty per cent of colleges in the United States.
― I will forlornly return to my home planet soon (dandydonweiner), Monday, 13 May 2013 23:12 (1 week ago) Permalink
the article is off on a few things (cost of teaching not the real driving force behind cost of college, but rather bureaucratic bloat, decreasing state funding, cooper union-esque overreach) but overall a pretty good take
― iatee, Tuesday, 14 May 2013 00:37 (1 week ago) Permalink
The thing that struck me most is that this article reminds me of a lot of hand wringing articles circa the Napster days, where the only sure thing was that the system was likely going through fundamental change.
― I will forlornly return to my home planet soon (dandydonweiner), Tuesday, 14 May 2013 02:15 (1 week ago) Permalink
yep. and nobody was paying $40,000 for a cd.
― iatee, Tuesday, 14 May 2013 02:25 (1 week ago) Permalink
bargain priced shit
― hoospanic GANGSTER musician (BIG HOOS aka the steendriver), Tuesday, 14 May 2013 04:23 (1 week ago) Permalink
plato was on the money about the motive for inquiry after all:
a lovely, earnest young woman who apparently likes scarves, and probably Shelley
― j., Tuesday, 14 May 2013 05:29 (1 week ago) Permalink
The cartoon is chucklesome.
― I turned away to leave these few in thought and contemplation (Bananaman Begins), Tuesday, 14 May 2013 10:31 (1 week ago) Permalink
In that New Yorker cartoon way.
― I turned away to leave these few in thought and contemplation (Bananaman Begins), Tuesday, 14 May 2013 10:32 (1 week ago) Permalink
http://thenewinquiry.com/blogs/zunguzungu/the-mooc-moment-and-the-end-of-reform/
― stefon taylor swiftboat (s.clover), Wednesday, 15 May 2013 18:39 (6 days ago) Permalink
loved that
― hoospanic GANGSTER musician (BIG HOOS aka the steendriver), Wednesday, 15 May 2013 18:53 (6 days ago) Permalink
The key to this piece of rhetorical alchemy is that you can’t over-think it, in the way I just have. Brooks is taking something that lacks prestige and cultural capital—a mode of education that is not valuable, only expensive, not innovative or exciting—and placing the name “Harvard” around it makes it into something that suddenly is both valuable and worthwhile, as a function of Harvard’s symbolic role in American higher education, to define the new cutting edge.
harvard is doing this too
― iatee, Wednesday, 15 May 2013 19:05 (6 days ago) Permalink
which is the only reason moocs are suddenly relevant, but a real reason why they are
― iatee, Wednesday, 15 May 2013 19:07 (6 days ago) Permalink
if capitalism evolves to a point where basic life necessities are super affordable, birth control readily available, etc, how does it convince the majority of ppl to breed + work? a) give them 80k-120k in student debt, b) force them to work for decades to pay it off, c) meanwhile they're so depressed by having to abandon their creative aspirations that they start families to give themselves something to feel okay about
FINE U WIN CAPITALISM
― Mordy , Monday, 20 May 2013 02:12 (Yesterday) Permalink
wait what? lots of people want to breed, beyond any kind of sense, i don't see that changing anytime soon!
― Nhex, Monday, 20 May 2013 02:14 (Yesterday) Permalink
Thomas Friedman’s good friend Michael Sandel
burrrrrnnn
― j., Monday, 20 May 2013 02:30 (Yesterday) Permalink
I imagine people who have 80-120k in student debt are less likely not more likely to start families
― iatee, Monday, 20 May 2013 02:42 (Yesterday) Permalink
http://deadspin.com/youre-fucked-but-youre-free-a-message-to-the-class-498483665
Trust me, your competition isn't as intimidating as you think it is. You wouldn't believe how shitty the rest of your peers are compared with you. All you have to do is not text during your job interview and you'll probably make the final round of nominees. People are fucking morons.
― j., Tuesday, 21 May 2013 18:41 (34 minutes ago) Permalink