Directions:
Please read the following article and answering the questions using complete sentences in an email to me.
Questions:
1. From the article, how many times greater is the cost of tuition and fees for a public university than it was in 1980-81?
2. What percentage of jobs in the U.S. economy will require a postsecondary education in the next decade according to Georgetown University's research?
3. Do you agree with the author that a college degree from a four year university is still worth it? Why or why not?
A College Degree Is Still Worth It
Sure, it costs more, and technology is threatening high-paying jobs. But the Great Recession shows postsecondary education is more valuable than ever.
It wasn't all that long ago—the 1980s and '90s—when hardly anyone questioned the value of a college degree. Sure, a couple of skeptics liked to point out that neither Bill Gates nor Steve Jobs graduated from college, and parents complained about the tuition bill. Still, when college acceptances went out in the spring, people cheered, believing that admission represented the ticket to a good job and career.
The doubters have a bigger audience these days. From Charles Murray at the American Enterprise Institute to New York Times columnist William D. Cohan, a cottage industry of critics argues that the degree may be a waste of money. Recession-scarred parents and their students are dismayed at the soaring cost of college. The inflation-adjusted tuition and fees in 2010-11 at a public university is 3.59 times the tab in 1980-81, according to the College Board. The comparable number for private colleges is 2.86 times. The list of college dropouts that have done well has grown to include Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, and Jack Dorsey, a co-founder of Twitter. Most troubling of all is an emerging narrative that modern information technologies are making college-educated workers an expensive anachronism. Workplaces filled with powerful computers, savvy software, and artificial intelligence linked through quicksilver global communications networks will turn lawyers and medical technicians into the secretaries and bank tellers of the 1980s.
VITAL FOR MOST U.S. JOBS
The message of the Great Recession and anemic recovery is that postsecondary education—from a certificate at a community college to an advanced degree—is more valuable than ever. The data suggest the dire conclusions are exaggerated, with the share of jobs in the U.S. economy requiring postsecondary education up from 28 percent in 1973 to 59 percent in 2008. Over the next decade that share could increase to 63 percent, estimate scholars at the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce. "Step back for a minute," says Terry Fitzgerald, senior economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. "If I am talking to a 17-year-old, am I really going to tell her, 'Don't go to college?' No."
Yes, it has been a rough decade for college-educated workers. The real earnings of young college graduates have stagnated. The job market has been inhospitable to newly minted graduates since the recession started in 2007, and economic research suggests an initial income hit for workers just starting out continues to exert a downward influence on their wages 15 years later. Routine white-collar jobs are being outsourced to high-tech shops at home (think legal research) and to emerging markets abroad (jobs such as processing individual tax returns).
Still, college graduates are doing better than everyone else. For instance, the median earnings of a college graduate with a BA working full-time in 2008 was $55,700 and for those with an Associates Degree (typically awarded by community and technical colleges) was $42,000. That's significantly better than the $33,800 for high school-only grads and $24,300 for those without a high school diploma.
LOW-SKILL JOBS ARE DISAPPEARING
The unemployment numbers are striking, too. The latest figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics show an unemployment rate of 4.3 percent for college graduates and above who are 25 years and older. That compares with 9.5 percent for high school graduates and 13.9 percent for those with less than a high school education. "The real damage has happened with the loss of low-skill jobs," says Stephen Rose, research professor at the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce.
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