What Is a College Degree?

     For so long as I can remember college degrees have been
touted as tickets to high paying jobs.  Millions of young people
go into hock buying those tickets.  There are 17,000,000 college
graduates who haven't found an employer who needs an
employee with the skills learned in college.

     How many under employed graduates dreamed of being a
cashier at McDonald's?  McDonald's dreams of hiring some of
those graduates to be cashiers.  A McDonald's advertised for
cashiers with bachelors degrees.

     What is the benefit to McDonald's?  Most likely some
high school dropouts could handle the job.  Most couldn't. 
Many high school graduates would be able to do the job.  No
specific skill taught in college is likely to be essential for a
McDonald's cashier.  Most college graduates could perform the
job.

     With current unemployment levels McDonald's would be
flooded with applications if it set no minimum education
requirement.  By requiring a bachelors degree, McDonald's
makes its screening process much easier.  It eliminates most
potential applicants up front.  So what if some of those
eliminated were qualified?  That doesn't matter to the employer
so long as it can still hire a qualified person and save itself a
bunch of work.

     Suppose you wanted to hire someone who could jump
four feet high.  Thousands might apply.  Adding the unnecessary
requirement that applicants must be able to jump six feet makes
the hiring process easier.  That only works if there is a surplus
of people who can jump six feet.  If there is no surplus, the
employer will have pay more to hire an over qualified person. 
The same principle applies to hiring overqualified college
graduates.

     The more surplus college graduates there are, the more
employers will require college degrees for lower skill jobs.  This
will create the illusion that college training is essential for
performing the low skill jobs.  Reality will be that employers put
millions to the expense of paying for a college degree merely to
make the hiring process easier for the employers.

     If there wasn't a surplus of college graduates, employers
would drop the college degree requirement for jobs where
college training was of little or no importance.  If the surplus of
college graduates continues to grow, it will be only a matter of
time until we will see jobs for truck drivers, bar tenders, and
trash collectors requiring college degrees.

     If there was a shortage of college graduates, businesses
wouldn't quietly fold for lack of trained employees.  They would
start on the job training for the skills the businesses need.  This
would be much more efficient than four year degrees.

     Most of what everyone pays to study and learn to earn a
degree is long forgotten before they ever use it for any job.  On
the job training, including home study through cyber education,
will target skills the employee actually needs and will use.   The
employee-trainees will have to work for lower pay while
learning job skills.  They will still be making more and spending
less than they would pursuing a degree at a brick and mortar
college.

     The irony is that increasing the number of college
degrees increases the expense of college while making the
degrees worth less, or even worthless.  Decreasing the number of
college degrees makes them worth more and reduces college
costs.

     A few jobs actually require much of what is learned in
college.  Most don't.  For the  jobs that do require degree
education, cyber school will usually be more efficient and less
costly.

     The main function of college degrees for most jobs is to
make the hiring process easier for employers.  The
student-employees, and taxpayers pay the bill.  For so long as
millions are willing to jump through the college hoop, waste will
continue.  A first step to solving the problem is to cut out
government subsidies to college students.  Individuals are less
likely to spend their own money to jump through the employers'
hoops.

aldmccallum@gmail.com
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Copyright 2013
Albert D. McCallum