U.S. 'On A Collision Course With The Future' In Terms Of Projected Demand For Educated Workers

A landmark report from the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce forecasts an uneven relationship between colleges and the job market. Although more future jobs will require advanced education, colleges are not doing enough to prepare their students for the projected workforce.

Inside Higher Ed talked to the Georgetown center's director:

The colleges that most students attend "need to streamline their programs, so they emphasize employability," said Anthony P. Carnevale, director of the Georgetown center.

Carnevale acknowledged that such a shift would accept "a dual system" in which a select few receive an "academic" college education and most students receive a college education that is career preparation. "We are all offended by tracking," he said. But the reality, Carnevale said, is that the current system doesn't do a good job with the career-oriented track, in part by letting many of the colleges on that track "aspire to be Harvard." He said that educators have a choice: "to be loyal to the purity of your ideas and refuse to build a selective dual system, or make people better off."

According to the report, 23 percent of all occupations will require a bachelor's degree by 2018. In 1973, that figure was nine percent. However, employers' educational expectations may level off in the future, with less of a demand for post-bachelor's degrees.

The New York Times has more:

For example, [Carnevale] said, the bureau predicts that education administrators will typically require no more than a bachelor's degree in 2018. But already, he said nearly half of education administrators have a master's degree, and 13 percent have a doctorate in education.

Similarly, he added, the bureau predicts that a nuclear technician in 2018 will typically need no more than an associate's degree. But already, he said, 43 percent of nuclear technicians have at least a bachelor's degree, and sometimes a more advanced degree.

The report also predicts that as more people obtain postsecondary degrees, it will become more difficult for them to join the middle and upper income classes.

Carnevale told Inside Higher Ed that he hopes the report makes people understand the significance of college, but also that career preparation needs to be a key aspect of the college experience.

What do you think of the findings? Weigh in below.

Comments

[rotorhead1871]

12:26 AM on 06/19/2010

so basically people are over educated......for what they do.

[lynzyluhu]

12:51 PM on 06/18/2010

I have no degree...I went to community college and always check "some college" on an application. Yet, I have 6 years of work experience that my 22-year-old peers don't have. They have these awesome degrees that they worked hard for - and cannot do a darn thing with them. They all waitressed or worked a small part time job going to school. I worked my way up the ladder and am now making a great salary that they are all envious of. I may be an exception to the rule, but as far as I can tell: "college" is a 4-year, $100,000, waste of time.

[rotorhead1871]

12:25 AM on 06/19/2010

unless you get a job in your field!!!!

BTW: you didnt mention it but your job must not require a Bachelors...you did miss some serious party time though.....and 4 yrs for 100K....you going to Princeton?

[MarauderF]

04:43 AM on 06/17/2010

This entire article is based on assumptions and means nothing.

[Brooke Steele]

02:16 PM on 06/16/2010

I think it is a fallacy to assume that people who go to college know how to think. For most schools, getting admitted is the hardest part. Student's are not well prepared for college level work and instructors are pressured to pass students. Therefore, the instructors fall into the model set up by our high schools - tell the students what they need to know to pass the test. This does not help the student's ability to think, make decisions, or solve problems. Something needs to change. We are devolving.

[Amalek]

03:32 PM on 06/16/2010

College gives you the opportunity to learn how to think. It does not guarantee you will do so, and graduation confers no promise that you did. The best schools are not the best because they have the best teachers or the best technologies (although they often do). They are the best because they have the best students and the students learn from each other how to think and how to behave.

I have attended and taught at great schools and mediocre state schools. My best educational experience was my bachelors degree at a lowly rated state school, where I had professors who actually cared about my learning. However, I learned the most at a top school where my peers were geniuses. The professors were geniuses too, but they did not know how to teach.

Although I got a decent education at the small state school, I made a mistake going there. I went for athletics instead of academics. Despite the fact that the professors were better teachers, I should have gone to a prestigious school where my peers would have challenged me more. I probably would have ended up in the same place in the end, but the middle part of the journey would have been more pleasant.

[lucent]

08:36 PM on 06/16/2010

Agreed!

[priscianusjr]

01:57 PM on 06/16/2010

I am disgusted that a study sponsored by a university would promote such mistaken assumptions about the purpose of a university. Have any of the authors read Newman's Idea of a University; if so, they have not understood it. A university should provide the building blocks of advanced learning and show how they connect with one another. Its job is not to train a "work force." Well-educated students are able to take on a wide variety of jobs, with the training provided by their employers. If they are trained for only specific jobs, that is all they will know. It will be obsolete within a few years. It's the general principles, the learning how to think and the learning how to learn, that a university can provide. The recommendations of this study just repeat the same mistake, point in the same wrong direction, that has brought the level of intelligence and general knowledge in America down and down. Unfortunately, I suspect tthis this must be the real point. Our corporate masters want a large class of uneducated and miseducated peons, not an intelligent citizenry of critical thinkers. The NY Times today has an op ed piece that in one go tells us what we should be doing, what we have not been doing, why we have not, and what effects this has had. It gives the lie to the Georgetown study much better than I can:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/16/opinion/16davis.html?src=mv

[Huffpuff1]

02:56 AM on 07/01/2010

Our corporate masters want a large class of EDucated peons.

Our colleges have turned into masters of making money. They lure you in (doesn't take much since people blindly go en masse without hesitation), then lie to you about your prospects by hiding and manipulating the facts. Some people do benefit, but many don't. It's these students that don't who wind up doing the same min. wage summer job permanently after graduation.

Colleges recruiters are like car salesmen. They are high pressure, create a sense of urgency, promise you'll love the product and take your money. The difference is, I have all of the facts about a car: It's reliability, economy, resale value, warranty, etc. Try getting THAT information from a university.

Watch the Frontline documentary on "College, Inc." and you can see how college students are taken for a ride with taxpayers footing the bill.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/collegeinc/view/

[gerald4]

11:29 AM on 06/16/2010

Liberal Arts Educations qualify the graduates to become fast food trainees flipping hamburgers for a high school dropout who is your boss.

[RhiannonRings]

11:33 AM on 06/16/2010

Sorry, but you are wrong.

[Amalek]

03:36 PM on 06/16/2010

You are correct if you think that you can build a career off of a history degree alone. A liberal arts degree prepares you for life, and for further training. You must take that further training if you expect to have a great career.

I am a business school professor at a top school. When I am involved in admissions decisions I much prefer someone with an undergraduate degree in liberal arts over someone who studied business. Business is easy to teach. Thinking is not.

[Bonaboman]

04:33 PM on 06/16/2010

Most likely admissions participants prefer what their past was. For example: the Sociology department at Washington University are all confirmed liberals; therefore, they prefer students who are liberal. Liberal arts is such a cush-path - when I was in college doing two undergraduate majors (accounting and computer science) I took an upper-level English class - Modern Fiction 1900 to 1940; or something like that. It was an easy "A". History classes were a breeze, as was "Communications". It was much much easier to write a paper about the omnipresence of Dr. Eckleburg, why Gregor was a cockroach, or why we all live through a big two-hearted river than it was to create a compiler.

[ProfessorDuh]

10:16 AM on 06/16/2010

The GI Bill permitted vast numbers of Americans to become the first generation in their families to get a university education, and really created the great American middle class. Corporations are now busy dismantling that middle class, and for good reason. Subsistence serfs are much more easily manipulated than educated people, and they don't dare oppose your corporate schemes, no matter what you'd care to do to them -- whether it's gamble away your life savings with derivative fraud or poison your oceans right in front of your eyes.

[lucent]

12:51 PM on 06/16/2010

So the implication here is that if you don't get a college education you are not able to think enough to realize you are being oppressed? If so, a rather elitist thought, no? Additionally, the push for kids to go to college is pretty serious these days. More people attend, fewer graduate. This whole things is not a dismantling of the middle class. In fact, that is the narrative that corporations push on all of us in order to convince all of us that the only way to get a job (implying, with them) is to go to college. They are keeping things rather status quo (like the G.I Bill of yesteryear, EVERYONE can go to college because we now have loans, loans, loans-again, keeping us in the middle and under their thumbs). If anything they are afraid that the cash cow called the middle class (people who pay taxes when others won't, people who buy what corporations push) is going to vanish...who will the usurers and snake oil salesmen suck dry then?

[ProfessorDuh]

01:11 PM on 06/16/2010

The corporate news media spotlights ranting, idlotic, race-baiting, education-hating ignoramuses with tea bags hanging from their hats as a serious political force. During the 2008 election, thanks to a relentless GOP propaganda campaign aimed at know-nothings, craven and wretched reporting by the corporate media and the general willful, thundering stupldity of the American public, what we were offered as "issues" were such topics as Hillary Clinton's capacity to sob, Barack Obama's middle name, the fear of his "secret Muslim religion," whether he and his wife indulge in "terrorist fist bumps," and his bowling score. 
This was what the voters in this country wanted to discuss while deregulated financial fraud collapsed the world economy. That's what burned up the media oxygen. And that’s because America is a land of uneducated dupes who need a big damn dose of “elitist education,” brother.

[rst2536]

07:42 AM on 06/16/2010

ON TEACHING (FOR DAVID BROOKS AND BARACK OBAMA)

Who says I’m overeducated
When I can barely read or write;
My math skills are abbreviated,
I know no history past tonight?
So I’ll go into education
Which doesn’t need much cogitation
Except to teach the answers for
“A test will get you in the door
To any job of your own choosing;”
And give the lie to David Brooks
And all the other snooty schnooks
Who think that we can’t win for losing…
And by the way have never taught
Beneath the classroom Juggernaut.
See more at http://poemsonaffairsofstate.blogspot.com/

[BAMUDA]

07:39 AM on 06/16/2010

This discussion is largely hinged on a false distinctions between length, focus and quality of education. There will always be a need for vocational training, and except for a few professions, like lower level nurses, we have that demand covered. What ails this country is not people's inability to work in trades, it is our collective inability to think. As long as there remains an idiocracy of millions who are so easily swayed to vote against their own interests none of this matters. I want my plumber to be skilled at plumbing, but I also want to him to have and exercise critical thinking skills as a parent and a voter. It is no coincidence that as the humanities have slipped further and further from the curriculum, so has our collective humanism.

[Oxerjump]

07:19 AM on 06/16/2010

Most of us believe that all nuclear power technicians will be completely phased out sooner than later. At this moment we should be training as many people as possible through advanced tech courses to re-build our energy grid and produce solar, hydro and wind technologies for immediate application so that nuclear power and coal fed plants can finally go the way of the dodo bird (Let China have all the uranium it wants to gobble up from Afghanistan to poison themselves with from here to eternity; in fact, let them have all of Afghanistan so our soldiers can finally be deployed at home.). The renewable energy trained individuals will be the new multi-millionaires of our society and we don't need to dish out uber-expensive college degrees to accomplish this, so Haavaad be damned. Has everyone noticed how many truly green and renewable energy companies are advertising what they are accomplishing right at this moment? It's incredible! Congress needs to get off its collective fat, corrupt and lazy *ss and move all this remarkable, renewable energy technology into the forefront NOW. The argument that we can't get by nor sustain our energy requirements if we fail to ramp up nuclear energy is COMPLETE B.S.!!!! Time to say b'bye to Homer Simpson and the like.

[lucent]

06:21 AM on 06/16/2010

Wow, not too sure I agree with some of the posts here. As a High school teacher, I see the effects of a system that is only designed for "academics". Unfortunately not everyone is intellectually curious and could care less about Faulkner, Shakespeare and Dickens. We do people a great disservice trying to give them the "everybody" can be a superstar mentality. Not everybody can. While that may upset some, it is the fact. Some of these posts mention without this kind of thing we risk rule by the elite.I disagree. In fact if anything empowering people to be successful with whatever they do will empower them to be more engaged in things like electing a president or community involvement. The world needs mechanics, plumbers, and carpenters. There is NOTHING wrong with training people to embark on such careers.Colleges have become corporations that push this agenda because all of this makes them look better and gets more in the door. If you want to talk about how successful the system is (or isnt) look at the college graduation rates (43% for state Universities and 54% for Private). These facts reflect the fact that the system isnt working and this is all about the elite convincing the rest of us that a college degree is what we should buy. It isnt for everyone and by making it so, you have quite a bit of confused kids who feel like total failures because they can't write an AP essay.

[Evita Luisa]

07:08 AM on 06/16/2010

You raise some good points, but miss the biggest one of all. The problem is not that we couldn't create a two-tiered system, where both, the academic and the pragmatic (too oversimplify for space's sake) are granted and conceded ground in our educational system. The problem, frankly, is that the American system is SO bloody pragmatic and SO dumbed down, especially at the high school level, that any changes that would be undertaken must perforce including a total overhaul of the elementary, middle school and high school systems in the U.S.
THE reason other countries can send their students to our universities to TEACH math, physics, any science under the sun, is because we fail miserably in getting THE BASICS done.

We can window dress and change up this and that ad infinitum, ad nauseum. But until we take a really, really hard (and thus unpopular) look at what's happened and is happening to American "education," we will never succeed and will, in fact, continually lose ground to European and Asian countries.

And, guess what???, it serves us right. We've been warned.

Schooling in America is a complete joke.

[priscianusjr]

02:06 PM on 06/16/2010

You're right -- not everybody should go to college or should have to go to college. Trade and professional schools can also provide an excellent education. But those that do qualify for college should be able to get a real college education, not to be shaped into corporate fodder as recommended here. Is it "elitist" to believe that everybody, no matter their race, religion, sex, national origin or income level, should be able to get a college education if they are qualified for it? Just the opposite of elitist, And that is exactly what this country needs, an educated citizenry.

[Truth189]

05:31 AM on 06/16/2010

We need newer degrees.. given the fact that 40% of the published scientific literature in peer reviewed journals is fraudulent.. how about a Faculty of Plagiarism... which offers advanced post graduate courses or.. a Faculty of Short Selling.. which offers a PhD in the same subject.. the point is.. our educational system cannot cope with the Untruths that society demands.. Universities teach integrity... Wall street would prefer to employ a Fraud

[Charles Allen]

07:29 AM on 06/16/2010

40% percent is fraudulent? Am I the only person that wants a citation for that statement?

[Truth189]

09:52 AM on 06/16/2010

"How Many Scientists Fabricate and Falsify Research? A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Survey Data" Fanelli (2009): http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0005738

[Truth189]

05:28 AM on 06/16/2010

Higher qualifications do not necessarily translate into a more productive economy... unless those qualified individuals complement the economic process.

[seawolf77]

05:16 AM on 06/16/2010

The problem with America is no one wants to work anymore. Why? Becasue our heroes are bums.

[Brooke Steele]

02:29 PM on 06/16/2010

I don't think that's true. I think people want to work and be proud of their accomplishments. I also think that it's very popular (and easy!) to reject formal learning (math, reading comprehension, spelling and grammar). It is hard to do the former once you have done the latter.

[Charles Allen]

07:14 AM on 06/17/2010

How rediculous, this idea that nobody wants to work these days. The real problem is that there are simply not enough jobs for people, certainly not enough jobs that allow you to ever hope to do anything but work until the day you die!

[zanzy]

05:10 AM on 06/16/2010

You mean, Corporations do not want to spend time and money for on the job training and mentoring programs for their employees. One more program thing they can cut and put the money in their pocket.
Also, Education is for the individual and society; we need a well -informed population who have critical thinking skills. I just think university and colleges should be more affordable. It this price tag and the ties with corporations that makes our higher learning system unsustainable and dangerous. How many people here want more Sarah Palin's? A women who never read a policy document in her life, let alone write a comprehensive policy on any one subject. Do we really want more of these? For me a firm and loud No. For corporations, religious groups, the republican party and any other corrupt power hunger group though, yes. Get it.