Previous posts in the series: The Breakdown
There’s no delicate way to state this so I’ll just blurt it out: the age cohorts coming up aren’t seeking out as much education as they should. Consider this table, taken from here and derived from Brookings Institute data:
| Age | HS diploma or more in 2000 | HS diploma or more in 2008 | Some college in 2000 | Some college in 2008 | Associate degree in 2000 | Associate degree in 2008 | Bachelor’s degree in 2000 | Bachelor’s degree in 2008 |
| 25 to 34 | 83.9 | 86.4 | 23.1 | 23.5 | 7.5 | 8.3 | 27.5 | 29.6 |
| 35 to 44 | 85.0 | 87.3 | 22.6 | 21.4 | 8.1 | 8.7 | 25.9 | 30.8 |
| 45 to 64 | 83.2 | 87.6 | 21.7 | 21.9 | 6.4 | 8.2 | 26.4 | 28.9 |
| 65 and over | 65.5 | 75.7 | 15.7 | 17.5 | 2.5 | 3.9 | 15.4 | 20.0 |
When the Baby Boomers started to enter the job market in numbers in the 1960s a high school diploma was enough for many jobs and a college diploma was thought to be the ticket to a secure and successful life. Now for good or ill jobs are divided into two categories: minimum wage jobs with no future and minimal educational requirements and jobs that require at least some college. You’d think that would mean that the young people of today would be getting more education than their elders did but that certainly doesn’t seem to be the case.
Next post in the series: The Breakdown: Education Is More Necessary Than Ever
Unfortunately, the data from Brookings doesn’t break down by gender. I supsect that women are increasing their education at a decent rate and men are probably decreasing educational attainment.
(Note also: The Brookings data is only for metropolitan U.S.)
Dave, I’d like to offer a suggestion that might explain this.
We have had, in recent decades, an influx of unskilled, uneducated undocumented foreigners who would be predominantly of that lower age cohort. It strikes me that this might explain the drop — add several million folks with less than a high school diploma to a given portion of the population, and you will see the numbers skew in precisely such a manner.
Also, since the data reflects only the 100 largest MSAs, to what degree does this reflect the realities of urban crime and gangs?
Now for good or ill jobs are divided into two categories: minimum wage jobs with no future and minimal educational requirements and jobs that require at least some college.
No, there is a third category, increasingly popular – no job at all.
…
Anyway, the rulers of the country want an ignorant workforce. This is evident by the fact that they’ve been importing millions of Third World peasants for the last few decades.