American Gentry, or, the GOP's College-Educated Whites

[Former President tack50]

And these people are then picking dumb majors, like the 185,000 who enroll in gender studies programs every year.

That isn't happening.

Bachelor's degrees conferred by postsecondary institutions

Major	Degrees Conferred (2018)	% Total
Business	390,564	19.4%
Health professions and related programs	251,355	12.5%
Social sciences and history	160,628	8.0%
Engineering	126,687	6.3%
Biological and biomedical sciences	121,191	6.0%
Psychology	116,536	5.8%
Communication, journalism, and related programs	92,528	4.6%
Visual and performing arts	89,730	4.5%
Computer and information sciences	88,633	4.4%
Education	83,946	4.2%

Source: National Center for Education Statistics

According to your data, 22.9% of college grads have degrees that make it really hard to find a job without grad school. (Social sciences, psychology, arts, journalism). Plus plenty of STEM majors like math or biology can't really do much with their degrees without medical school or some form of ceritifcation

Actually math is a very employable degree, provided you go into certain paths that are related with IT, big data, statistics and all that stuff that is on the rise these days (so basically the applied side of math, not the pure one). This is a fairly recent development from my understanding though. Physics has also benefited from this to a lesser extent.

Other "pure sciences" are less employable indeed though

[Former President tack50]

And these people are then picking dumb majors, like the 185,000 who enroll in gender studies programs every year.

That isn't happening.

Bachelor's degrees conferred by postsecondary institutions

Major	Degrees Conferred (2018)	% Total
Business	390,564	19.4%
Health professions and related programs	251,355	12.5%
Social sciences and history	160,628	8.0%
Engineering	126,687	6.3%
Biological and biomedical sciences	121,191	6.0%
Psychology	116,536	5.8%
Communication, journalism, and related programs	92,528	4.6%
Visual and performing arts	89,730	4.5%
Computer and information sciences	88,633	4.4%
Education	83,946	4.2%

Source: National Center for Education Statistics

> "enrolling in dumb majors isn't happening"
> Most popular enrollment is business

Business is definitely an employable major, although I do wonder if it is really "1 in 5 graduates" levels of employable.

[Torie]

Back before rocks cooled, and tuition was perhaps 10K per year in current dollars, rather than 60K, the idea among the upper, upper middle class, was you went to college and studied the humanities and social sciences, etc., to enrich your life, discover yourself as a person, hone your writing and reasoning skills, and then went to "trade school," be it law, medicine, finance, engineering, etc. I suspect there is not much currency left in that ideal now. It's just too prohibitively expensive.

[Sprouts Farmers Market ✘]

I pretty much agree with everything in the first post except the connotation. These people should be given the entire world.

Yeah, for most of this I was thinking that this was a helpful reminder for the people on here that the true Republican base is a lot more than the caricature of overweight hicks badly misspelling Facebook posts voting against their own interests because 20 percent of Texans don't have insurance, but then I kept going and couldn't possibly understand why these people were being denigrated. Such a superior life to being a slave for a corporation or the government, all while thinking you're so cool for living in a big, coastal city (seems more like a cope) and essentially building no wealth for that right.

[pbrower2a]

And these people are then picking dumb majors, like the 185,000 who enroll in gender studies programs every year.

That isn't happening.

Bachelor's degrees conferred by postsecondary institutions

Major	Degrees Conferred (2018)	% Total
Business	390,564	19.4%
Health professions and related programs	251,355	12.5%
Social sciences and history	160,628	8.0%
Engineering	126,687	6.3%
Biological and biomedical sciences	121,191	6.0%
Psychology	116,536	5.8%
Communication, journalism, and related programs	92,528	4.6%
Visual and performing arts	89,730	4.5%
Computer and information sciences	88,633	4.4%
Education	83,946	4.2%

Source: National Center for Education Statistics

> "enrolling in dumb majors isn't happening"
> Most popular enrollment is business

Business is definitely an employable major, although I do wonder if it is really "1 in 5 graduates" levels of employable.

Many of the business majors have huge gaps in their learning, such as the inability to do communication beyond a K-12 level. A bachelor's in business is appropriate for 'manager trainees' in retailing and food service, which do need employees. To get the good jobs in business one needs a a more demanding MBA, and for that an understanding of social sciences and language arts is highly desirable. Some BBA degrees are nearly worthless, as in "personnel management", because most people in personnel departments are staffed with people transferred laterally instead of being fired.

The needs in employment have generally been the same, and the decline in the need for industrial workers may be abating. Prosperity still has a material basis, and factory work (which never required any advanced education) was long the most reliable escape from grinding poverty. Who knows? It might be again.

People go into "performing arts" and "visual art" out of love for the art. Many such people will find that their talent is modest and decide that teaching art or music in K-12 education is a good way to get along in life. 
 

[Person Man]

Back before rocks cooled, and tuition was perhaps 10K per year in current dollars, rather than 60K, the idea among the upper, upper middle class, was you went to college and studied the humanities and social sciences, etc., to enrich your life, discover yourself as a person, hone your writing and reasoning skills, and then went to "trade school," be it law, medicine, finance, engineering, etc. I suspect there is not much currency left in that ideal now. It's just too prohibitively expensive.

That’s basically what I did on accident.

[jojoju1998]

And these people are then picking dumb majors, like the 185,000 who enroll in gender studies programs every year.

That isn't happening.

Bachelor's degrees conferred by postsecondary institutions

Major	Degrees Conferred (2018)	% Total
Business	390,564	19.4%
Health professions and related programs	251,355	12.5%
Social sciences and history	160,628	8.0%
Engineering	126,687	6.3%
Biological and biomedical sciences	121,191	6.0%
Psychology	116,536	5.8%
Communication, journalism, and related programs	92,528	4.6%
Visual and performing arts	89,730	4.5%
Computer and information sciences	88,633	4.4%
Education	83,946	4.2%

Source: National Center for Education Statistics

> "enrolling in dumb majors isn't happening"
> Most popular enrollment is business

Business is definitely an employable major, although I do wonder if it is really "1 in 5 graduates" levels of employable.

Many of the business majors have huge gaps in their learning, such as the inability to do communication beyond a K-12 level. A bachelor's in business is appropriate for 'manager trainees' in retailing and food service, which do need employees. To get the good jobs in business one needs a a more demanding MBA, and for that an understanding of social sciences and language arts is highly desirable. Some BBA degrees are nearly worthless, as in "personnel management", because most people in personnel departments are staffed with people transferred laterally instead of being fired.

The needs in employment have generally been the same, and the decline in the need for industrial workers may be abating. Prosperity still has a material basis, and factory work (which never required any advanced education) was long the most reliable escape from grinding poverty. Who knows? It might be again.

People go into "performing arts" and "visual art" out of love for the art. Many such people will find that their talent is modest and decide that teaching art or music in K-12 education is a good way to get along in life. 
 

Hi I just wanted to add some few points of mine.

1. Many Business Majors yes; but not all. I don't know about you, but in California; the public Universities have different subtypes of business majors. Accounting, Marketing, General Management, Business Information Systems.

Usually; the accounting major and the business information systems major is the most financially lucrative at least where I live.  But they're also the most tecnically demanding majors.

2. I am assuming that the guy you responded to was from Spain. Just a reminder that Europe does college a bit differently than the US. The Major gaps in communication that you say is prevalent in US Business Majors I would assert is almost missing in European Business students mainly because the level of high school education I would guess is higher in these European countries than our catch all American high school education.

I mean just look at the requirements to enter a Business Major program at a Spanish University. https://www.esade.edu/en/programmes/undergraduate/admissions/admission-requirements/academics#/education-system-1

They require a specialization that you get graduating from their high schools in the social sciences or technology. All Spanish students  however when they graduate from their high schools are required to take the Spanish Bacc. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_Baccalaureate#Core_subjects I would assert that some of these classes are equilvalent to the two year general education program at US Colleges.

[jojoju1998]

Back before rocks cooled, and tuition was perhaps 10K per year in current dollars, rather than 60K, the idea among the upper, upper middle class, was you went to college and studied the humanities and social sciences, etc., to enrich your life, discover yourself as a person, hone your writing and reasoning skills, and then went to "trade school," be it law, medicine, finance, engineering, etc. I suspect there is not much currency left in that ideal now. It's just too prohibitively expensive.

I just want to say that Engineering is most likely going to be a 4 year undergrad degree. Unless I am missing something ?

[Torie]

Back before rocks cooled, and tuition was perhaps 10K per year in current dollars, rather than 60K, the idea among the upper, upper middle class, was you went to college and studied the humanities and social sciences, etc., to enrich your life, discover yourself as a person, hone your writing and reasoning skills, and then went to "trade school," be it law, medicine, finance, engineering, etc. I suspect there is not much currency left in that ideal now. It's just too prohibitively expensive.

I just want to say that Engineering is most likely going to be a 4 year undergrad degree. Unless I am missing something ?

Perhaps.That is certainly the most typical. Engineering was outside my interest area, so I never paid any attention to it.

[jojoju1998]

Also it just brings into question the whole American education system. Why can't our high schools be the " enrich your life, discover yourself as a person, hone your writing and reasoning skills " part ? That's what other countries especially in Europe have. I keep on repeating this but go to a German high school; one of their Gymnasiums. Their level of high school education is much more higher than the US. Yes; they have free college but there are reasons why it's free. The high school education is one of them.

And they also have a very strong skilled trades program.

[Santander]

Back before rocks cooled, and tuition was perhaps 10K per year in current dollars, rather than 60K, the idea among the upper, upper middle class, was you went to college and studied the humanities and social sciences, etc., to enrich your life, discover yourself as a person, hone your writing and reasoning skills, and then went to "trade school," be it law, medicine, finance, engineering, etc. I suspect there is not much currency left in that ideal now. It's just too prohibitively expensive.

I just want to say that Engineering is most likely going to be a 4 year undergrad degree. Unless I am missing something ?

Perhaps.That is certainly the most typical. Engineering was outside my interest area, so I never paid any attention to it.

It's actually more common these days for engineers to have master's degrees. But relatively few "engineering" degrees are granted in true engineering disciplines these days. (i.e. civil and to some extent mechanical engineering)

[Former President tack50]

2. I am assuming that the guy you responded to was from Spain. Just a reminder that Europe does college a bit differently than the US. The Major gaps in communication that you say is prevalent in US Business Majors I would assert is almost missing in European Business students mainly because the level of high school education I would guess is higher in these European countries than our catch all American high school education.

I mean just look at the requirements to enter a Business Major program at a Spanish University. https://www.esade.edu/en/programmes/undergraduate/admissions/admission-requirements/academics#/education-system-1

They require a specialization that you get graduating from their high schools in the social sciences or technology. All Spanish students  however when they graduate from their high schools are required to take the Spanish Bacc. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_Baccalaureate#Core_subjects I would assert that some of these classes are equilvalent to the two year general education program at US Colleges.

Worth noting that you looked at some private university (and a fairly prestigious one at that I think) Private universities can put whatever requirements they want but public ones do not have that luxury. (ironically public universities tend to have a much better reputation)

Requirements for public universities are a lot more lenient and are standardized nationally. You do not have any specific graduation requirements and it really just works on supply and demand.

If there are 100 spots on a given program (you have to "declare your major" from day 1), the 100 students with the best combination of HS GPA + "End of HS exam" get in. Worth noting that "End of HS exam" gets weighed differently depending on what classes you took in HS*; so if you are going to apply to say, an engineering program, you would be heavily adviced to take math and physics classes.

In any case, my absolutely terrible local public university will basically take anyone with a HS degree into their business administration or economics programs; with the minimum grade being a 5/14 (the bare minimum for passing). A more demanding public university (like for example Barcelona's Pompeu Fabra University) will demand roughly around a 11/14 to get in (this varies year on year since as I said it works on supply and demand)


Ftr Spain and the US have pretty much identical levels of high school performance according to various international rankings so I don't think HS is going to be a factor on that. (college certainly might though; you are right that college organization is different in Europe compared to the US and fulfills a different role)

^{*: It is actually a bit more complicated than this. I can go into more detail but I don't think it is needed to explain my point}

[Badger]

Back before rocks cooled, and tuition was perhaps 10K per year in current dollars, rather than 60K, the idea among the upper, upper middle class, was you went to college and studied the humanities and social sciences, etc., to enrich your life, discover yourself as a person, hone your writing and reasoning skills, and then went to "trade school," be it law, medicine, finance, engineering, etc. I suspect there is not much currency left in that ideal now. It's just too prohibitively expensive.

I just want to say that Engineering is most likely going to be a 4 year undergrad degree. Unless I am missing something ?

Perhaps.That is certainly the most typical. Engineering was outside my interest area, so I never paid any attention to it.

THANK you!  The fundamentals of the link between college education and employment have been severed so dramatically is romantically in the last few decades primarily because of the vast increase in the cost of education beyond the growth of inflation, which again has to do primarily with a reduction in government support , And fundamental changes in the  Is economy devastating the very concept of a middle class,  Or what is  Is primarily at fault here. It's not The Choice of undergraduate majors.Even 30 years ago people with philosophy, English, is the English, et cetera in cetera insert liberal arts here degrees graduated and did just fine the majority of the time.

 I'm not saying that student student selection of undergraduate majors do it majors shouldn't adapt with The Times somewhat, but let's make it clear that just because OSR happened to be one of the very very small percentage of students whose 4 year degree is directly related to  If their post graduation employment field does not Mean that we should follow his effective advice of, As another poster put it,

<<So you're saying people who are born into wealthy families should go work at the family business and everyone else should go out and be a physical laborer or craftsman.

Congratulations, you just reinvented pre-Industrial Revolution Europe.>>

 It also bears mentioning that while we are in a time of great economic expansion where skilled craftsmen like carpenters, truck drivers, bruckdriver's, et cetera Arden huge demand and  If can command good wages, let's never forget that for the last 40 Year non coincidentally with the advent of reaganomics,  Is these middle class skilled trade jobs have dwindled dwindled as far as a share of the employment pool.  While graduating from trade school with ACD L or electricians electricians certificate in 2021 might be great, looking at long term trends is Trent relying on such Is trade school education as a pathway to long longterm stable middle class employment, even if one works hard and is reasonably confident their job, is dicey at best

[Skill and Chance]

Back before rocks cooled, and tuition was perhaps 10K per year in current dollars, rather than 60K, the idea among the upper, upper middle class, was you went to college and studied the humanities and social sciences, etc., to enrich your life, discover yourself as a person, hone your writing and reasoning skills, and then went to "trade school," be it law, medicine, finance, engineering, etc. I suspect there is not much currency left in that ideal now. It's just too prohibitively expensive.

That’s basically what I did on accident.

This strategy was viable pre-2008, when the most popular elite career tracks were finance and corporate law.  You could study the humanities and then get those jobs, particularly if you perform well on standardized tests and make the right friends.

Since then, elite jobs have become more and more tech dominated and the problem with the traditional humanities undergrad path is that it basically shuts you out of the tech world.  Also, academic humanities has basically become an impossible career path, so it doesn't give you a good plan B if the increasingly scarce banking jobs and high end law school slots don't work out for you.

The medical doctor path falls somewhere in between.  You don't have to major in science, but you do have to consistently get A's in science classes.  In today's environment, you might as well just major in something that could also get you a tech job as a plan B. 

[Torie]

Back before rocks cooled, and tuition was perhaps 10K per year in current dollars, rather than 60K, the idea among the upper, upper middle class, was you went to college and studied the humanities and social sciences, etc., to enrich your life, discover yourself as a person, hone your writing and reasoning skills, and then went to "trade school," be it law, medicine, finance, engineering, etc. I suspect there is not much currency left in that ideal now. It's just too prohibitively expensive.

That’s basically what I did on accident.

This strategy was viable pre-2008, when the most popular elite career tracks were finance and corporate law.  You could study the humanities and then get those jobs, particularly if you perform well on standardized tests and make the right friends.

Since then, elite jobs have become more and more tech dominated and the problem with the traditional humanities undergrad path is that it basically shuts you out of the tech world.  Also, academic humanities has basically become an impossible career path, so it doesn't give you a good plan B if the increasingly scarce banking jobs and high end law school slots don't work out for you.

The medical doctor path falls somewhere in between.  You don't have to major in science, but you do have to consistently get A's in science classes.  In today's environment, you might as well just major in something that could also get you a tech job as a plan B. 

That would be much more true in finance than in the law. Being tech savvy is not what makes the best lawyers. Rather it is logic and the power of the pen. And that skill is about a liberal arts education and be widely read, and to use just the right words and phrases and tone at the right time.

[Skill and Chance]

Back before rocks cooled, and tuition was perhaps 10K per year in current dollars, rather than 60K, the idea among the upper, upper middle class, was you went to college and studied the humanities and social sciences, etc., to enrich your life, discover yourself as a person, hone your writing and reasoning skills, and then went to "trade school," be it law, medicine, finance, engineering, etc. I suspect there is not much currency left in that ideal now. It's just too prohibitively expensive.

That’s basically what I did on accident.

This strategy was viable pre-2008, when the most popular elite career tracks were finance and corporate law.  You could study the humanities and then get those jobs, particularly if you perform well on standardized tests and make the right friends.

Since then, elite jobs have become more and more tech dominated and the problem with the traditional humanities undergrad path is that it basically shuts you out of the tech world.  Also, academic humanities has basically become an impossible career path, so it doesn't give you a good plan B if the increasingly scarce banking jobs and high end law school slots don't work out for you.

The medical doctor path falls somewhere in between.  You don't have to major in science, but you do have to consistently get A's in science classes.  In today's environment, you might as well just major in something that could also get you a tech job as a plan B. 

That would be much more true in finance than in the law. Being tech savvy is not what makes the best lawyers. Rather it is logic and the power of the pen. And that skill is about a liberal arts education and be widely read, and to use just the right words and phrases and tone at the right time.

I agree.  I'm just saying high end lawyers are declining as a % of elite jobs with the rise of tech, etc. making academically successful people on the fence less likely to choose that path. 

[jojoju1998]

Back before rocks cooled, and tuition was perhaps 10K per year in current dollars, rather than 60K, the idea among the upper, upper middle class, was you went to college and studied the humanities and social sciences, etc., to enrich your life, discover yourself as a person, hone your writing and reasoning skills, and then went to "trade school," be it law, medicine, finance, engineering, etc. I suspect there is not much currency left in that ideal now. It's just too prohibitively expensive.

That’s basically what I did on accident.

This strategy was viable pre-2008, when the most popular elite career tracks were finance and corporate law.  You could study the humanities and then get those jobs, particularly if you perform well on standardized tests and make the right friends.

Since then, elite jobs have become more and more tech dominated and the problem with the traditional humanities undergrad path is that it basically shuts you out of the tech world.  Also, academic humanities has basically become an impossible career path, so it doesn't give you a good plan B if the increasingly scarce banking jobs and high end law school slots don't work out for you.

The medical doctor path falls somewhere in between.  You don't have to major in science, but you do have to consistently get A's in science classes.  In today's environment, you might as well just major in something that could also get you a tech job as a plan B. 

That would be much more true in finance than in the law. Being tech savvy is not what makes the best lawyers. Rather it is logic and the power of the pen. And that skill is about a liberal arts education and be widely read, and to use just the right words and phrases and tone at the right time.

That being said; all college majors have a liberal arts component. General education requirements.

[jojoju1998]

Back before rocks cooled, and tuition was perhaps 10K per year in current dollars, rather than 60K, the idea among the upper, upper middle class, was you went to college and studied the humanities and social sciences, etc., to enrich your life, discover yourself as a person, hone your writing and reasoning skills, and then went to "trade school," be it law, medicine, finance, engineering, etc. I suspect there is not much currency left in that ideal now. It's just too prohibitively expensive.

That’s basically what I did on accident.

This strategy was viable pre-2008, when the most popular elite career tracks were finance and corporate law.  You could study the humanities and then get those jobs, particularly if you perform well on standardized tests and make the right friends.

Since then, elite jobs have become more and more tech dominated and the problem with the traditional humanities undergrad path is that it basically shuts you out of the tech world.  Also, academic humanities has basically become an impossible career path, so it doesn't give you a good plan B if the increasingly scarce banking jobs and high end law school slots don't work out for you.

The medical doctor path falls somewhere in between.  You don't have to major in science, but you do have to consistently get A's in science classes.  In today's environment, you might as well just major in something that could also get you a tech job as a plan B. 

So the problem isn't " all college education is bad " or " Trade schools are worthless ". It's how do we help people get skills in a tech dominated world ?

[jojoju1998]

Overall it looks like we have a 5 part education system.

1. The Upper/Upper Middle Class who can afford to send their kids to any Ivy League or other private school; pay alot of money, and their kids can study whatever they want; because regardless, they have connections to companies and find a nice cushy white collar corporate job. Or they get a job in their family's company.

A subsection of this group would be the party kids : They go to a party school; CSU Fullerton as an example; but then they don't need to worry; because their parent knows someone who works in sales management.

2. The Middle Class Kid who studies super hard; and gets a scholarship to the service academies; MIT, Cal Tech, Ivy Leagues, and studies something in the sciences or math or engineering.

3. The new middle class kid who goes to college for the first time; and unfoturnately has to borrow student loan debt, and can't find a job because his or her major is not in demand and they don't have the resources to market that degree for another white collar profession.

4. The average Joe blue collar worker who has NO college education and is therefore stuck in the bottom.


How do we fix this ?

[ملكة كرينجيتوك]

Overall it looks like we have a 5 part education system.

1. The Upper/Upper Middle Class who can afford to send their kids to any Ivy League or other private school; pay alot of money, and their kids can study whatever they want; because regardless, they have connections to companies and find a nice cushy white collar corporate job. Or they get a job in their family's company.

A subsection of this group would be the party kids : They go to a party school; CSU Fullerton as an example; but then they don't need to worry; because their parent knows someone who works in sales management.

2. The Middle Class Kid who studies super hard; and gets a scholarship to the service academies; MIT, Cal Tech, Ivy Leagues, and studies something in the sciences or math or engineering.

3. The new middle class kid who goes to college for the first time; and unfoturnately has to borrow student loan debt, and can't find a job because his or her major is not in demand and they don't have the resources to market that degree for another white collar profession.

4. The average Joe blue collar worker who has NO college education and is therefore stuck in the bottom.


How do we fix this ?

Anecdotally, there are a lot of people in group 1 majoring in STEM (math or science or engineering) fields. I would argue that STEM students are disproportionately from upper-middle or professional class backgrounds compared to other fields. By contrast, healthcare students seem to have a more balanced family class background profile and are more likely to come from working poor or lower-middle class backgrounds (even after excluding subcategories like nursing, hygienists, radiology techs, etc.)

[jojoju1998]

Overall it looks like we have a 5 part education system.

1. The Upper/Upper Middle Class who can afford to send their kids to any Ivy League or other private school; pay alot of money, and their kids can study whatever they want; because regardless, they have connections to companies and find a nice cushy white collar corporate job. Or they get a job in their family's company.

A subsection of this group would be the party kids : They go to a party school; CSU Fullerton as an example; but then they don't need to worry; because their parent knows someone who works in sales management.

2. The Middle Class Kid who studies super hard; and gets a scholarship to the service academies; MIT, Cal Tech, Ivy Leagues, and studies something in the sciences or math or engineering.

3. The new middle class kid who goes to college for the first time; and unfoturnately has to borrow student loan debt, and can't find a job because his or her major is not in demand and they don't have the resources to market that degree for another white collar profession.

4. The average Joe blue collar worker who has NO college education and is therefore stuck in the bottom.


How do we fix this ?

Anecdotally, there are a lot of people in group 1 majoring in STEM (math or science or engineering) fields. I would argue that STEM students are disproportionately from upper-middle or professional class backgrounds compared to other fields. By contrast, healthcare students seem to have a more balanced family class background profile and are more likely to come from working poor or lower-middle class backgrounds (even after excluding subcategories like nursing, hygienists, radiology techs, etc.)

Because Healthcare is seen as a stable pathway to the middle class. But guess what ? It's also oversaturated. At least where I live in California, it's so competitive to find a radiology tech job or a nursing job with stable benefits and good pay. All the Good employers are closed off, or they have enough people.

[Person Man]

Back before rocks cooled, and tuition was perhaps 10K per year in current dollars, rather than 60K, the idea among the upper, upper middle class, was you went to college and studied the humanities and social sciences, etc., to enrich your life, discover yourself as a person, hone your writing and reasoning skills, and then went to "trade school," be it law, medicine, finance, engineering, etc. I suspect there is not much currency left in that ideal now. It's just too prohibitively expensive.

That’s basically what I did on accident.

This strategy was viable pre-2008, when the most popular elite career tracks were finance and corporate law.  You could study the humanities and then get those jobs, particularly if you perform well on standardized tests and make the right friends.

Since then, elite jobs have become more and more tech dominated and the problem with the traditional humanities undergrad path is that it basically shuts you out of the tech world.  Also, academic humanities has basically become an impossible career path, so it doesn't give you a good plan B if the increasingly scarce banking jobs and high end law school slots don't work out for you.

The medical doctor path falls somewhere in between.  You don't have to major in science, but you do have to consistently get A's in science classes.  In today's environment, you might as well just major in something that could also get you a tech job as a plan B. 

That’s what my dad did when his grades turned out to be atrocious. I actually did OK in science classes when I had the discipline to do them. I still struggled with ODE 1 and Scientific Computing (C’s) and to a lesser extent Discrete Structures, and Linear Algebra(B’s). Got A’s in Engineering Physics and Biology, though. I don’t think your grades have to be that high if you went into Physics or Engineering to get into med school. Those classes are far harder than traditional pre-med classes except for maybe O Chem.

[Person Man]

Back before rocks cooled, and tuition was perhaps 10K per year in current dollars, rather than 60K, the idea among the upper, upper middle class, was you went to college and studied the humanities and social sciences, etc., to enrich your life, discover yourself as a person, hone your writing and reasoning skills, and then went to "trade school," be it law, medicine, finance, engineering, etc. I suspect there is not much currency left in that ideal now. It's just too prohibitively expensive.

That’s basically what I did on accident.

This strategy was viable pre-2008, when the most popular elite career tracks were finance and corporate law.  You could study the humanities and then get those jobs, particularly if you perform well on standardized tests and make the right friends.

Since then, elite jobs have become more and more tech dominated and the problem with the traditional humanities undergrad path is that it basically shuts you out of the tech world.  Also, academic humanities has basically become an impossible career path, so it doesn't give you a good plan B if the increasingly scarce banking jobs and high end law school slots don't work out for you.

The medical doctor path falls somewhere in between.  You don't have to major in science, but you do have to consistently get A's in science classes.  In today's environment, you might as well just major in something that could also get you a tech job as a plan B.  

That would be much more true in finance than in the law. Being tech savvy is not what makes the best lawyers. Rather it is logic and the power of the pen. And that skill is about a liberal arts education and be widely read, and to use just the right words and phrases and tone at the right time.

I agree.  I'm just saying high end lawyers are declining as a % of elite jobs with the rise of tech, etc. making academically successful people on the fence less likely to choose that path.  

An average senior SWE at a mid-prestige firm makes about 120 base , 150 TC. That’s probably what a senior law associate makes with the feds in an expensive city as a GS-14 or working in a law office with 30 other lawyers in a place like Tampa or Minneapolis. The former you can get into from just having an OK GPA from an OK school, the latter you probably either need to get into a large state’s flagship’s school or a place Case Western Reserve and get A’s and B’s or get into a school like Fordham or Vanderbilt.

At a prestigious tech firm…well just look at levels.FYI. An engineer with an average level of experience makes about a quarter to a third million a year and their version of a junior law partner makes well north of half a million. You can’t ever get into a law firm like that from a non-ivy.

[All Along The Watchtower]

So the problem isn't " all college education is bad " or " Trade schools are worthless ". It's how do we help people get skills in a tech dominated world ?

By breaking up the tech monopolies, filing civil and perhaps criminal charges against the top executives, redistributing their assets downward, and actively encouraging people to opt out of the nightmare tech dystopia.

[jojoju1998]

Back before rocks cooled, and tuition was perhaps 10K per year in current dollars, rather than 60K, the idea among the upper, upper middle class, was you went to college and studied the humanities and social sciences, etc., to enrich your life, discover yourself as a person, hone your writing and reasoning skills, and then went to "trade school," be it law, medicine, finance, engineering, etc. I suspect there is not much currency left in that ideal now. It's just too prohibitively expensive.

That’s basically what I did on accident.

This strategy was viable pre-2008, when the most popular elite career tracks were finance and corporate law.  You could study the humanities and then get those jobs, particularly if you perform well on standardized tests and make the right friends.

Since then, elite jobs have become more and more tech dominated and the problem with the traditional humanities undergrad path is that it basically shuts you out of the tech world.  Also, academic humanities has basically become an impossible career path, so it doesn't give you a good plan B if the increasingly scarce banking jobs and high end law school slots don't work out for you.

The medical doctor path falls somewhere in between.  You don't have to major in science, but you do have to consistently get A's in science classes.  In today's environment, you might as well just major in something that could also get you a tech job as a plan B.  

That would be much more true in finance than in the law. Being tech savvy is not what makes the best lawyers. Rather it is logic and the power of the pen. And that skill is about a liberal arts education and be widely read, and to use just the right words and phrases and tone at the right time.

I agree.  I'm just saying high end lawyers are declining as a % of elite jobs with the rise of tech, etc. making academically successful people on the fence less likely to choose that path.  

An average senior SWE at a mid-prestige firm makes about 120 base , 150 TC. That’s probably what a senior law associate makes with the feds in an expensive city as a GS-14 or working in a law office with 30 other lawyers in a place like Tampa or Minneapolis. The former you can get into from just having an OK GPA from an OK school, the latter you probably either need to get into a large state’s flagship’s school or a place Case Western Reserve and get A’s and B’s or get into a school like Fordham or Vanderbilt.

At a prestigious tech firm…well just look at levels.FYI. An engineer with an average level of experience makes about a quarter to a third million a year and their version of a junior law partner makes well north of half a million. You can’t ever get into a law firm like that from a non-ivy.

I wonder if it would be better for states to actively regulate law schools. Because there are so many low ranking law schools; and they don't have the quality that I would expect to create high quality lawyers.