I’m still fulminating about the article I posted on this morning. This is his second to last paragraph:
We realize that at the micro-level not all college educations are worthwhile and a lot of people learn skills outside of college. But before America can exasperate about high unemployment, perhaps the nation needs to max out its educational credentials first. If 80% of the workforce has 16 years of education, and still can’t compete, then we can search for other causes. Until then, it’s very likely that America just needs to become more educated going forward if it wants to have some of the highest paid workers in the world.
Okay. Let’s do a little noodling. If you extend the numbers from his graph which I posted in the previous post, the number of unemployed people who don’t have college degrees is roughly 9 million. According to the College Board average costs for a college degree range from $80,000 for a typical 4-year public school (4 X $20,000 per year) for in-state students (more like $120,000 for out-of-state students) to $160,000 for a typical 4-year private school. Just to come up with a number we’ll use the nice round number of $120,000. That’s 9 million people times $120,000 per person or just over $1 trillion.
Got a spare trillion on you for an experiment that’s all but bound to fail? The rest of the countries in the world won’t be sitting still while the experiment is going on.
A lot of opportunity here for someone. There is room for online education services here to blossom. Educational materials can be put online. Lectures can go online. Teachers could be available for individual sessions for problems. Different kinds of degrees need to be offered rather than the standard 4 year, which is actually now a five year, degree. Schools would offer more courses aimed at helping people change careers or make advancements. I also suspect that we can expect kids to start taking studies more seriously.
Steve
You might think so but I doubt it. The high school drop-out rate has been enormously consistent over time.
If the primary determinant of college graduation is convenience, online courses could fill the gap. However, if it’s cost it probably won’t. Online courses offered by accredited programs are absurdly expensive—comparable to attending a bricks-and-mortar college.
Which is sort of what you’d expect. Price typically isn’t proportional to cost but to whatever the market will bear.