Let's talk Academic Inflation

Xios

Wiki

Academic inflation is the process of inflation of the minimum job requirement, resulting in an excess of college-educated individuals with lower degrees (associate and bachelor's degrees) competing for too few jobs that require these degrees and even higher, preferred qualifications (master's or doctorate degrees). This condition causes an intensified race for higher qualification and education in a society where a bachelor's degree today is no longer sufficient to gain employment in the same jobs that may have only required a two- or four-year degree in former years. [1] Inflation has occurred in the minimum degree requirements for jobs, to the level of master's degrees, Ph.D.s, and post-doctoral, even where advanced degree knowledge is not absolutely necessary to perform the required job.

So, when i graduate next summer, with an honours BA in Business, it'll pretty much be worth the same as a leaving cert in 1996. I'm so excited.

sbsquarepants

I have 2 nobel prizes. Would you like fries with that?:D

Cee-Jay-Cee

Too early in the morning for this kinda shíte.

AnonoBoy

Ah let's not.

JohnMarston

And with the rise in redundancy, you'll be competing for jobs with degree holders who already have years of relevant experience.

summerskin

I have a policy of hiring people without degrees where possible. If you stood two people in their early twenties before me and asked me whether I wanted to choose the person who had been working hard since the age of 16 or 18 and was fully aware of what was expected of a person in the workplace, or the person with the degree, sense of entitlement and inflated self-worth(of course not all grads are like that, and I have employed a few of them over the years that have been good), I'd take the worker everytime.

Degrees are pretty much worthless. I did mine 18 years ago and was given jobs purely because I had a degree, regardless of the fact that it was of no relevance to the job and has been of no use in any workplace.

Plazaman

A little bit of advice I like to give to all graduates with a BA in anything.

Make sure you know that it's sauce first, then cheese, then toppings. Then you'll BAble for anything....



*gets coat

Guill

When the education system was established it was based on the industrial requirements and economic conditions.

Basically most people could only go to primary school.
(factory worker level)
Some went through secondary
(trades, mid level management)
Few went to college
(gauranteed job).

That system worked for 100+ years but the economy changed and upset the balance. The standard 20 years ago was:


Everybody must go to primary school.
Some leave secondary school early
(trades, Factory workers)
Alot finish education after secondary school.
(trades, Factory workers, work way up ladder, etc.)
increase in college graduates.
(gauranteed job).

This year:
Everybody must go to primary school.
Some leave secondary school early
(trades, Factory workers, dole)
Alot finish education after secondary school.
(trades, Factory workers, work way up ladder, dole, etc.)
Most go to college.
(No jobs, dole , emmigration, fill what few jobs are available).

If you stand back and look at the education system as a machine we have all the settings wrong and are making the wrong product at the moment (graduates). Hence why the Governament will raise fees.

JohnMarston

summerskin wrote: »

Degrees are pretty much worthless. I did mine 18 years ago and was given jobs purely because I had a degree, regardless of the fact that it was of no relevance to the job and has been of no use in any workplace.

Its hammered into you from the start of the leaving cert two year cycle that third level education is the way to go. When you graduate you feel like you've accomplished something useful. How much good does it do to someones self-worth when theyre told their degree is worth little?

Guill

http://youtu.be/zDZFcDGpL4U

Xios

Guill wrote: »

http://youtu.be/zDZFcDGpL4U

I've seen that one, really wish the civil servants in the dep. of education had a look at it though.

daddydick

summerskin wrote: »

I have a policy of hiring people without degrees where possible. If you stood two people in their early twenties before me and asked me whether I wanted to choose the person who had been working hard since the age of 16 or 18 and was fully aware of what was expected of a person in the workplace, or the person with the degree, sense of entitlement and inflated self-worth(of course not all grads are like that, and I have employed a few of them over the years that have been good), I'd take the worker everytime.

Degrees are pretty much worthless. I did mine 18 years ago and was given jobs purely because I had a degree, regardless of the fact that it was of no relevance to the job and has been of no use in any workplace.

Hold on now, that may work for whatever your line of business is but in any of the high value industries such as pharma, engineering, accounting, investment banking, science, IT etc etc etc you are saying that the school-leaver is a better hire than the college grad??

Don't know what industry you're in but that doesnt make sense for quite a lot of industries

libnation

Wikipedia thought me more than college

summerskin

libnation wrote: »

Wikipedia thought me more than college

Clearly not...

Guill

libnation wrote: »

Wikipedia thought me more than college

Didn't learn much in college then?

previous user

JohnMarston wrote: »

Its hammered into you from the start of the leaving cert two year cycle that third level education is the way to go. When you graduate you feel like you've accomplished something useful. How much good does it do to someones self-worth when theyre told their degree is worth little?

Thats shocking, feel bad for those kids, I'm 35 unemployed and hoping to go back to college to do some degree or something.

Red_Wake

summerskin wrote: »

I have a policy of hiring people without degrees where possible. If you stood two people in their early twenties before me and asked me whether I wanted to choose the person who had been working hard since the age of 16 or 18 and was fully aware of what was expected of a person in the workplace, or the person with the degree, sense of entitlement and inflated self-worth(of course not all grads are like that, and I have employed a few of them over the years that have been good), I'd take the worker everytime.

Degrees are pretty much worthless. I did mine 18 years ago and was given jobs purely because I had a degree, regardless of the fact that it was of no relevance to the job and has been of no use in any workplace.

What industry are you in?

summerskin

Oil.

Red_Wake

summerskin wrote: »

Oil.

And in what capacity would you be looking to hire people?

I doubt it's rig design.:)

summerskin

Red_Wake wrote: »

And in what capacity would you be looking to hire people?

I doubt it's rig design.:)

You're right. The degree must have made you smart...

I'm talking about entry level jobs (sales, administration, customer service etc), which at the moment is all a graduate can expect in 95% of cases. The curse of Mickey Mouse degrees has rendered the majority of them unemployable. Do I really want to hire the person with a BA in Horticulture in 18th Century Peru over the lad who has spent two or three years in various low-paid sales jobs developing his skills in that, more relevant, field? No.

Would I want to hire a graduate to design an off-shore mobile drilling semisub? Probably not also, I'd go for the 50+ year old who started off as an apprentice engineer and has worked on multiple such projects in the past, gaining knowledge and skills from experts in their field.

I'd give the graduate what is pretty much the equivalent of an old apprentice position. What is learned in books is not always transferrable to real-life instances. The best way to learn is from other people actually DOING the job, not from textbooks or academics for the most part. The degree may give them some theoretical knowledge, but they possess none of the actual skills required to complete the task.

MonkeyTennis

a degree often shows the ability to learn and apply to a high level. You seem to have a reverse snobbery.

summerskin

MonkeyTennis wrote: »

a degree often shows the ability to learn and apply to a high level. You seem to have a reverse snobbery.

Not at all, I did a degree myself. I would say though that in the last 20-30 years degrees have been massively devalued (and mine was a mickey mouse degree, spent 3 years dossing and drinking and then worked for about 2 weeks at the end to get a 2.1). Now pretty much everyone seems to have a degree in something or other, yet most of them can't seem to spell properly or even do basic maths.

My recruitment choice is based on years of experience. I have worked at a company that only recruited graduates and it was a disaster, a policy I changed within 3 months of joining them. The snobbery comes from people with degrees looking down on those who leave school after their LC/A-levels and go straight in to the workforce. They think a degree opens every door for them and those who choose not to go to University are "throwing their life away" or have no ambition. I've interviewed countless graduates who stated that they "expected" to be at management level within a year, despite having no experience of the actual role.

kippy

Its got very little to do with academic inflation and more to do with job and the jobs market.
Nowadays there are fewer jobs in the manual side of things, production of something solid that can be sold.
There are more and more of these "knowledge economy" type jobs where you generally need to have a degree in something to "prove" you know the basis of something.

However many of todays college degrees are just fluff, you learn very little that is related to the job it is meant to train you for. Even more degrees don't train you for a specific role, just provides you with a broad education.

In the workplace, there are traits other than the piece of paper you have, that are far more valued.
Ability to adapt to changing requirements,
Posses a good attitude.
Works well without supervision.
Communicates and gets on with peers.
Achieves meaningful results.

No matter what anyone tells you, you dont "learn" these in college.

I feel sorry for those leaving college at the moment, there are some jobs out there for them but they are competing with people with experience as well as qualifications.


The reasons degrees and college in general appears to be "devalued" is more to do with the amount of people that have them, rather than the standards in education.
Back in the day, certain courses would have been "easier" to pass than they are now, it's just that "free" education has opened up third level to far more people, without the corresponding increase in jobs that those certifications are applicable to/for. Indeed a lot of those jobs that state a requirement of college education, really don't need that level at all.

MonkeyTennis

summerskin wrote: »

Not at all, I did a degree myself. I would say though that in the last 20-30 years degrees have been massively devalued (and mine was a mickey mouse degree, spent 3 years dossing and drinking and then worked for about 2 weeks at the end to get a 2.1). Now pretty much everyone seems to have a degree in something or other, yet most of them can't seem to spell properly or even do basic maths.

My recruitment choice is based on years of experience. I have worked at a company that only recruited graduates and it was a disaster, a policy I changed within 3 months of joining them. The snobbery comes from people with degrees looking down on those who leave school after their LC/A-levels and go straight in to the workforce. They think a degree opens every door for them and those who choose not to go to University are "throwing their life away" or have no ambition. I've interviewed countless graduates who stated that they "expected" to be at management level within a year, despite having no experience of the actual role.

So you wouldnt hire someone like your good self?

steddyeddy

Xios wrote: »

Wiki


So, when i graduate next summer, with an honours BA in Business, it'll pretty much be worth the same as a leaving cert in 1996. I'm so excited.

Businesses are also starting to look at first year university results aswell.

Duggys Housemate

summerskin wrote: »

Would I want to hire a graduate to design an off-shore mobile drilling semisub? Probably not also, I'd go for the 50+ year old who started off as an apprentice engineer and has worked on multiple such projects in the past, gaining knowledge and skills from experts in their field.

I'd give the graduate what is pretty much the equivalent of an old apprentice position. What is learned in books is not always transferrable to real-life instances. The best way to learn is from other people actually DOING the job, not from textbooks or academics for the most part. The degree may give them some theoretical knowledge, but they possess none of the actual skills required to complete the task.

All graduates in IT, where I work, are effectively apprentices. Nobody has ever doubted that, and its true of engineering too. It's always been the case. What the employer gets however, is someone who knows the theory - something that needs intensive training - for free. Then the practical learning is hands on. People obviously get better over time.

You have moved on from your original argument, you are now claiming that you prefer experience to a degree ( sure, who doesn't), rather than you wouldn't ever hire people with degrees. If your oil company is not hiring graduates its going to find itself unable to extract oil, or make that extraction more economical in the future and your company will die.

It does seem that you may not be in those departments, where degrees are necessary, at least I hope not, because if it is the generally theory of your Oil company to not hire grads, the shareholders should know.

summerskin

MonkeyTennis wrote: »

So you wouldnt hire someone like your good self?

No chance at all! I spent some time travelling after spending three months looking for work. I took low paid jobs in places in Europe and the USA for two or three years so that when I finally went for an interview for a slightly better/higher paid job I had some experience to show for it. Funnily later in my career I moved to a company that insisted on a degree. The job was in immigration law and my degree was in Media, not relevant at all. It was at that company changed the recruitment process to include none graduates.

I still hire grads, but they're rarely the first choice.

Duggys Housemate

summerskin wrote: »

No chance at all! I spent some time travelling after spending three months looking for work. I took low paid jobs in places in Europe and the USA for two or three years so that when I finally went for an interview for a slightly better/higher paid job I had some experience to show for it. Funnily later in my career I moved to a company that insisted on a degree. The job was in immigration law and my degree was in Media, not relevant at all. It was at that company changed the recruitment process to include none graduates.

I still hire grads, but they're rarely the first choice.

Yes but you are not really in charge of hiring the main workers for that engineering based oil extraction industry you are in. Employers need, by the way, to actually train people up. An engineering degree is a general degree, it would need some work to make it an Oil Engineer out of a general engineer. If all of your industry are playing chicken and not hiring graduates then pretty soon none of you will get anybody with 3 years experience.

OneArt

I'm only starting a degree this year so I can get higher paying positions. I've been a freelance copywriter for the last few months and I'm amazed at the skills I've been forced to develop. But there are a tonne of websites looking for academic researchers/writers and you need to have a college level education to apply. Hopefully a degree from Germany is worth it!

I was amazed at the amount of language schools here as well who hired teachers without degrees. They cared more about getting native speakers.

summerskin

Duggys Housemate wrote: »

All graduates in IT, where I work, are effectively apprentices. Nobody has ever doubted that, and its true of engineering too. It's always been the case. What the employer gets however, is someone who knows the theory - something that needs intensive training - for free. Then the practical learning is hands on. People obviously get better over time.

You have moved on from your original argument, you are now claiming that you prefer experience to a degree ( sure, who doesn't), rather than you wouldn't ever hire people with degrees. If your oil company is not hiring graduates its going to find itself unable to extract oil, or make that extraction more economical in the future and your company will die.

It does seem that you may not be in those departments, where degrees are necessary, at least I hope not, because if it is the generally theory of your Oil company to not hire grads, the shareholders should know.

I said I hire non-grads WHERE POSSIBLE, not all the time. I also pointed out that for the most part I was referring to lower level positions.

Also, I'm not in any of those departments, I'm the national manager reporting to the EMEAR Director of Operations who is based overseas.

Pherekydes

I got an E in the mock Inter Cert Maths in 1976. This is probably worth a 1.1 now.

steddyeddy

summerskin wrote: »

I said I hire non-grads WHERE POSSIBLE, not all the time. I also pointed out that for the most part I was referring to lower level positions.

Also, I'm not in any of those departments, I'm the national manager reporting to the EMEAR Director of Operations who is based overseas.

That really really depends on the job. Science graduates have experience in the form of lab practicals. You couldnt hire people without degrees for certain jobs.

rgmmg

Whether a degree is academically worth it or not is debatable. What's not debatable is the fact that most employers insist on having one to get past their screening of candidates, irrespective of how much experience you have.

summerskin

steddyeddy wrote: »

That really really depends on the job. Science graduates have experience in the form of lab practicals. You couldnt hire people without degrees for certain jobs.

I agree, that's why I said where possible, but in general even someone with a degree has to start off by doing what was effectively the apprentice's job not too many years ago. Our accounts team is full of graduates, as are various other departments, but all of them have to start at the bottom just as they always would have done in the past. One of our managers in accounts, for example, started with the compay 22 years ago as an accounts assistant at age 17. She spent two years pretty much making brews and shadowing other people before being let loose on her own. Eight years later she became a supervisor, followed by promotions to junior manager and ultimately head of her own department within accounts. She did this with no formal qualifications.

The last time we interviewed for the junior accounts role we had graduates who genuinely expected to be in her position within two years. Some of them seriously thought that a 2.1 meant that they had all the knowledge required to be a manager, despite not only having never managed anyone, but never having even one day of experience in the workplace.

Donnielighto

summerskin wrote: »

I said I hire non-grads WHERE POSSIBLE, not all the time. I also pointed out that for the most part I was referring to lower level positions.

Also, I'm not in any of those departments, I'm the national manager reporting to the EMEAR Director of Operations who is based overseas.

Whats your take on grads who have worked while in college?

Red_Wake

summerskin, is your main problem with grads their unrealistic expectations RE promotions, or do you actually find them to be consistently less competent than non grads?

Also, does your company offer much in the way of training?

summerskin

Red_Wake wrote: »

summerskin, is your main problem with grads their unrealistic expectations RE promotions, or do you actually find them to be consistently less competent than non grads?

Also, does your company offer much in the way of training?

Donnielighto wrote: »

Whats your take on grads who have worked while in college?

It's usually their unrealistic expectations about the workplace and their over-ambitious career goals(one told us at interview that he only wanted to work for us for two to four years as he then intended to start up his own company in a similar field. He had graduated one month previous with a 2.1 in Business Management and Corporate Strategy and never worked in his life).

We offer ongoing training in every single position within the company, my own included, but people who have recently graduated often think that they do not need this training as they know it all already. Of course not everyone is like that, but it is a significant majority.

As for grads who have worked in college, much better in general, even if their work itself is not relevant, the lessons they have learned about being part of a team, professionalism, reality/expectations definitely are.

Red_Wake

summerskin wrote: »

It's usually their unrealistic expectations about the workplace and their over-ambitious career goals(one told us at interview that he only wanted to work for us for two to four years as he then intended to start up his own company in a similar field. He had graduated one month previous with a 2.1 in Business Management and Corporate Strategy and never worked in his life).

We offer ongoing training in every single position within the company, my own included, but people who have recently graduated often think that they do not need this training as they know it all already. Of course not everyone is like that, but it is a significant majority.

As for grads who have worked in college, much better in general, even if their work itself is not relevant, the lessons they have learned about being part of a team, professionalism, reality/expectations definitely are.

It seems like your problem is more to do with the attitudes of graduates than their quality.

Can't say I don't disagree with you on the sense of entitlement some students seem to have, I've only graduated within the last year and some of my friends (different degrees, tbf) wouldn't take jobs they perceive to be below them.

libnation

Guill wrote: »

libnation wrote: »

Wikipedia thought me more than college

Didn't learn much in college then?

I learned how to be verbose. How to write 10,000 word essays on basically nothing.

summerskin

Red_Wake wrote: »

It seems like your problem is more to do with the attitudes of graduates than their quality.

Can't say I don't disagree with you on the sense of entitlement some students seem to have, I've only graduated within the last year and some of my friends (different degrees, tbf) wouldn't take jobs they perceive to be below them.

I'd say it's 90% attitude, 10% because of their ability. The number of incorrectly spelled CVs is astonishing, as is the use of txt speak on cover letters. We had one graduate use "IMO" and "ppl" on his cover letter...

libnation wrote: »

I learned how to be verbose. How to write 10,000 word essays on basically nothing.

The comment was about the use of the word "thought" instead of "taught" on your post, it was a little joke, sorry, but relevant to the points I have made.

Crann na Beatha

This post has been deleted.

DEFTLEFTHAND

Since they opened up third level to the masses every Tom Dick and Harry has some bullsh1t degree that they expect jobs out of.

minidazzler

sbsquarepants wrote: »

I have 2 nobel prizes. Would you like fries with that?:D

So you have 1.9 million euro and you still work at a fast food place?

elasticspastic

minidazzler wrote: »

So you have 1.9 million euro and you still work at a fast food place?

No, he just hangs around fast-food places offering people complimentary fries hoping people will like him; he has two Nobel Prizes, all that work probably didn't leave him much time to socialise.