Professor Exposes 'Great College-Degree Scam'

I obtained this originally from NewsMax--my apologies to the unknown author for lack of recognition.

Professor Exposes ‘Great College-Degree Scam’ 

While the number of American college graduates rose significantly from 1992 to 2008, 60 percent of the increased number worked in jobs that the Bureau of Labor Statistics considers relatively low skilled, a university economist disclosed.

Those are jobs where many employees have only high school diplomas or less, and less than half of the increased number of grads have filled jobs historically regarded as requiring at least a bachelor’s degree. 

That’s the finding of Richard Vedder, a distinguished professor of economics at Ohio University, who is critical of President Barack Obama’s insistence that the United States needs more college graduates.

In an article for The Chronicle of Higher Education headlined “The Great College-Degree Scam,” Vedder — director of the Center for College Affordability and Productivity — points out that in 1992, 28.9 million college graduates were employed, and 5.1 million — about 17 percent — were in jobs the BLS termed “noncollege level jobs.” 

But in 2008, total college graduate employment was 49.3 million, and 17.4 million — 35 percent — were in jobs classified as requiring less than a bachelor’s degree. 

As an example, Vedder notes that in 1992, there were 119,000 waiters and waitresses with college degrees. By 2008, the number had increased to 318,000. The total number of waiters and waitresses rose by 1 million during that period, and 20 percent of those new jobs were filled by college students. 

“The push to increase the number of college graduates seems horribly misguided from a strict economic/vocational perspective,” writes Vedder, who is also an adjunct scholar with the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research. 

“It is precisely that perspective that is emphasized by those, starting with President Obama, who insist that we need to have more college graduates.” 

Vedder says his findings suggest “a horrible decline in the productivity of American education.” In many cases it now takes 18 years of schooling (including kindergarten and five years of college) to get an education to do a job that a generation or two ago was filled by a person with 12 or 13 years of education. 

Vedder concludes: “We are deceiving our young population to mindlessly pursue college degrees when very often that is advice that is increasingly questionable."

Refer also to another NewsMax article entitled, College Has Become a Consumer Fraud, By Ronald Kessler, chief Washington correspondent of Newsmax.com, Monday, 17 May 2010, 09:59 AM.