Over-educated and Under-paid: A New Trend

Continuing our look at for-profit educational institutions in the United States, we inevitably come to the crossroads where we consider how much formal education is too much.  Wait!  Did I just say that someone could be over-educated?  Read this excerpt from "The Mob and the Multitude" and decide:

The myth of the academic meritocracy powerfully affects students from families that believe in education, that may or may not have attained a few undergraduate degrees, but do not have a lot of experience with how access to the professions is controlled. Their daughter goes to graduate school, earns a doctorate in comparative literature from an Ivy League university, everyone is proud of her, and then they are shocked when she struggles for years to earn more than the minimum wage. (Meanwhile, her brother—who was never very good at school—makes a decent living fixing HVAC systems with a six-month certificate from a for-profit school near the Interstate.)

The for-profit school gave the brother in this scenario a step-up. It allowed him the ease of obtaining a degree general enough to find a job yet specialized enough to make some money doing it. Meanwhile, his sister is over-educated and under-paid. But why are well-educated people often in this predicament? Take a deep breath and consider these possibilities:

• Not everyone who goes to college is talented or particularly knowledgeable (gasp!).


• Some people pursue degrees in subjects that are relatively easy.


• As one advances through higher education, he or she tends to specialize in a field, sometimes to such a degree that there is no feasible job for him or her.


• Holding an advanced degree doesn't mean you can pay the bills. An MBA or a PhD (or both, in some cases) does not guarantee a large salary (or one at all, for that matter).

These startling suggestions may leave some to wonder - why pursue higher education at all? But let us remember that education was meant, in the classical sense, as a means of self-fulfillment. When young Michel de Montaigne studied Greek, he did so not because it would get him a better job, he did so because he had fun doing it. Montaigne also knew that his fluency in Latin (a dead language even in his 16th century day) was useful in careers politics and law, but he also harnessed that language to read the great thinkers in their original form. Today, many adults pursue higher education hoping to land a better paying job. The for-profit colleges encourage this; their marketing techniques focusing on "advancing your career" or "launching into something new." While there's certainly nothing wrong with wanting to make more money or in getting a promotion at work, education has lost its true essence of learning for learning's sake.  So before pursuing that next Master's Degree at XYZ University Online, consider your motives and the real impact that degree will have on your life.  Are you prepared to spend thousands of dollars on a degree that may or may not earn you more money?

Photo Credit: Steve Snodgrass