Does an education correlate with ability or opportunity

a reply to: NthOther

the piece of paper is useless.

Except that the one with the piece of paper has a job and the other doesn't.

originally posted by: Phage
a reply to: CIAGypsy

You might find that many successful people without degrees run their own businesses.

Maybe because, I don't know, they couldn't get a good enough job.

Uh.. no, that is not what I've seen. What I've seen is that they are usually personalities who have repulsions to following others an staying within established limits. That's why they felt repulsed to following the expected educational path, and why they don't WANT to get a job working for someone else.

They are often people who are hyper individualist, crave independence, and are willing to go to great lengths and make great sacrifices to keep it.
More so then others who are more drawn to taking orders and fitting into a larger organism, and having more job security.

I'm thinking of my grandfather, who ran away from home at fourteen, and ended up being a billionaire with his own company. He was very intelligent and ALSO had very good networking and social skills. If you are lacking in either of those areas, better not to play the rebel.

Opportunity. As does just about everything in this world. Its run like a hellzone of misery for most people.

a reply to: onequestion

Where I work if you don't have education behind what ever skilled trade you are in then good luck getting a promotion or a call back from a lay off. You can be the most skilled welder, fitter, machinist, etc. in the world but if you don't have the schooling behind you to read drawings, symbols, know properties of metals and such you can't proceed.

When I finish my apprenticeship my value sky rockets over everyone who doesn't have the education, which in turn gets me the job and money.
But, that's just from the trades standpoint, office jobs I am not sure.

You asked. Does having an advanced education help? Absolutely, it has made all the difference in salary, and job satisfaction. If you have an advanced education, you typically come out of it gung-ho to use the newly obtained education, and most employers can see you are ready to go.

Look, when I was getting out of high school there was talk everywhere about "degrees are worthless now", blah, blah. There was even a big article in Newsweek magazine about it, citing people with doctorates who were working as carpenters and such, because they couldn't find a job. It's always been the case, and there will always be personal characteristics that don't fly well in a professional setting. I know people who are extremely bright with degrees, but are unable to get up and even arrive at a job on time! Those are personal characteristics that don't fly well in the job market, so one must have those too.

You will always have people telling you it's worthless, and citing stories of the billionaires who succeeded without formalized education, and of course those stories are not to be discounted. It happens.

But most of us actually learn at universities and acquire certain skills that people will pay for.


Perhaps now a bachelors degree is worth what maybe a high school diploma was 25 years ago. But if you go for the advanced degrees, it opens many doors.

from what I have seen in the work force there are some with no degrees and are very talented and those with degrees that are dumb as a box of rocks, I too have always wonder the same question you pose but I hate to say it but.....is there something to that movie by Eddie Murphy called "Trading Places"?

a reply to: 19KTankCommander


There are such isolated cases, but for the most part, it's simply not the case.

The company I work for had a restructuring of sorts a couple of years ago.
They decided to hire Supervisors who would have between 1 and 3 group homes and anywhere between 5-25 employees that they were directly responsible for.
There was a group of administrators (myself being one) charged with finding and interviewing potential candidates. The idea was to hire between 12-15 both inside the company and from the local job pool. Half of the group insisted on degreed applicants with various arguments as to why that was essential to perform the job and the other half insisted that we hire within the company which we felt experience was essential to perform the job. We felt we could offer training and mentoring in the areas office skills, lack of experience in a supervisory role, etc.) that the person may be lacking...

This was not a high paying job to start. It was above the legal minimum wage but, not by much! Most people in upper management positions started on the ground floor.

There were 13 people hired. 8 from inside and 5 from outside with degrees. One of the degreed people is still with us but, he had prior experience in a related field. He is also a veteran. In two years he has moved "up" in the company and is doing fairly well financially as he is making quite a bit more than his original salary when he hired in as one of the new Supervisors.
Of the 8 non degreed individuals, 2 have left the company and the other 6 remain. When he moved up, he was replaced with an individual without a degree.
In my profession, a degree certainly helps but, it doesn't necessarily prepare you for the "real" situations and problems you would/could encounter on a daily basis. The professional skills one would need in a supervisory role could be taught.

I moved up quickly and my duties have very little to do with my original field of study. As a matter of fact, right before I applied for a job, the company stopped requiring a high school diploma or GED. It is a difficult job market where I live and we lack applicants. The burnout rate is very high and we maintain around a 50-60% turnover of staff "in the field" but, that is a common (albeit shocking) number in my profession (now)...

a reply to: onequestion

I believe that a person with street smarts, integrity, and old fashioned work ethics are better qualified than a college grad. There are exceptions to this. I want a highly educated and skilled surgeon, but even they aren't always the cats meow.

I got my first job because I was a graduate. It was a 2.1 degree in sociology, but proves you have a certain level of intelligence.it wasn't a great job, it was a media sales executive, but the company was only looking for graduates. It opens doors that are closed to those without a degree, whether you like it or not.
It certainly wasn't my dream job, but the degree helped. You do have to be capable of independent learning and the ability to work in groups and do presentations, which are all important in most jobs.

a reply to: onequestion

Having letter after your name can open doors for you, but it's what you do with it that counts.

You can have an alphabet after your name, and if you don't take the initiative and make the most of the opportunities behind the doors, it won't matter. My husband doesn't have an alphabet; he only has dual bachelors, but he has taken on positions that no one else wanted and cleaned them up and made them important. He has respect from people who do have alphabets after their names, more respect than some people who have alphabets after their names where he works.

And right now, part of what he's getting paid to do is numbers analysis. That part of his education was not formal. He learned a lot of tricks for it by being a tabletop RPG GM. He needed to see and anticipate how various bonuses and rules changes would affect the table before his players could try to rules lawyer and stay one step ahead. As a result, he now looks at a data set for testing and sees angles no one else thinks of. It makes him valuable because he has uncovered things others would have missed that have saved money.

He's also not afraid to stand up for himself in the face of the alphabets when he has the data to back what he's saying. That's also valuable. But nothing in his education taught him that. He just had to learn to have the strength of his convictions and to stop caring as much what others thought when he knew he was right.

Honestly, it's a combination of things, but education is only a part of it. You can't think that just because you have it, you are going to fly.

Another thing for you to consider - how much will your education cost you? If you have scholarships or tuition reimbursement, then you are apparently better off than most. The average student debt has risen to $30,000.

Source

a reply to: CIAGypsy

A wise person considers what they study.

Most degrees are not worth the amount you will be paying to get them at most institutions. You need to really do your research. Some things like teaching are needed all over. You can more or less guarantee that there will be a job for you somewhere with that degree, but you need to plan out how you intend to handle your career very carefully.

The average teaching job isn't going to return enough to enable you to pay off the loans you will take at most major four years.

So, do you do JUCO to reduce costs? Do you slow your degree track so that you can pay classes mostly our of pocket? Do you plan to teach inner city for five years after college and live in penury during that time to eventually qualify for total loan forgiveness? Do you shop around and find a cheaper, less prestigious school to get your degree from understanding that all you have to do is get that first job and if you are any good, you will take off no matter what the name on the degree is? Do you do a combination?

originally posted by: Phage
Two applicants for a controller position. Equal job experience. One with a degree and one without. Guess who will get the job.

Two applicants for an administrative position in a company. One with an MBA one without. Guess who will get the job.

Where do you think Google looks for coders? On ATS?

Actually I have a young friend that was just recruited by Google and he never set foot in a college. Completely self-taught (using publicly available resources and his friends), he writes apps, moderately sucessful on his own, and couldn't refuse the offer that Google gave him.

I agree that mostly big business hires from universities. But they do keep an eye out for talent in other locales as well.

Education is not the same as job training. If you spend $100,000 on job training at University to get a $30,000 job, then I feel sorry for you. If you spend $100,000 becoming an educated person, then you will be a better citizen with better judgement and discernment who will be more valuable as an employee because of those things.

So, yes, education correlates with ability and opportunity, but not in the narrow sense that it prepares you for a specific job.

a reply to: Grumble

Learning should be a lifelong endeavor...I agree. You should never stopped learning....regardless of whether you go to college or not.

But realistically, there is a serious problem with the cost of education for most students today. My son chose to go to a public 4 yr university instead of a private school as I had hoped. The cost of his education last year? $24,000. By the time he graduates, he will have spent over $100,000. Luckily he has parents who can afford his tuition. (Technically I am paying tuition for 3 people, not just one.)

Now, lets look at this from another angle. I hired 4 people last year in one of my companies for positions varying from Sales to Engineering to a Comptroller. There were dozens of people interviewed who were just out of college or about to be out of college. Had I hired one of these individuals I would have paid an entry level salary. Probably not more than $25K for Sales and perhaps $35K for engineering. Not any different than any other company...

So imagine a kid saddled with $100K education debt facing a potential salary of $35K? That's a recipe for financial disaster. Especially when the government mortgages the future generations by saddling them with the enormous debt of their parents.

a reply to: onequestion

It all depends, on how you apply your trade, the best education in the world wont work if you don't put it too use.

a reply to: onequestion

College is a rip off now a days in my opinion.

Learn a trade skill if you like working with your hands, you will almost always have work.. Won't make millions a year but you can live comfortably in most places.

My wife's uncle was a Farrier make 150k a year before he passed away...(he did horse shoes at the race track) 3 year apprenticeship then you make good money if you are good and have a strong work ethic.

a reply to: Phage

Experince is way more valuable in the technical IT, and intergated entry and alarm systems world. On that I have to disagree

a reply to: onequestion

Both are contributing factors in their own ways. The problem is that society likes to pretend one is more important than the other, when reality never works out that way.