An article from today's New York Times regarding the added value of a college education: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/06/03/upshot/up-college-unemployment-quiz.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=mini-moth®ion=top-stories-below&WT.nav=top-stories-below
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I read articles like this that look at perception vs data and smile for good and bad reasons. On the one hand, our public perception of reality is often quite far off the mark (see any political "discussion" today), so this article offers a descriptive example of how perceptions are becoming out of control at times. On the other hand, my smile is more of incredulity. Has any of these writers or researchers ever been and impoverished student with 60k+ in debt? If they had been, they might have even just mentioned that the motivation for 4 year grads to be employed in some manner is so much higher because of the mountain of debt and social expectations that came with their degree. Expectations such as "Get this degree and you will have a job that pays well in that field" are just as faulty perceptions as the article illustrates. When recent grads figure this perception is way off their reality, they go to work to try to dig out and hopefully "get lucky" and land in the field they just paid for. It was also disturbing that there was no talk of what those 4 year grads were actually doing for employment and how it was related to their degree. Data related to any correlation of degree program with types of employment of those grads would have been a much more telling and compelling story. This person's work discovered an important fact, that perceptions of unemployment as it relates to college degrees is off. I believe he should have shared the many questions this brings up for future explorations into that data and other related factors.
It is sad to see so many reports and research done from the low hanging fruit of data. People see a pile of data and think, "Oh, there is a story there!" and their story misses so many other elements. This is similar to reading one chapter of Tom Sawyer and concluding they fully understand all the works of Mark Twain. Is there data or reports out there that take a deeper look into the actual value of a degree program today? I would love to know data on how many people are employed within their degree, in a related field, or in fields not related to the degree. It would be nice to see the debt to income ratios in the work that is degree related and how many years of full time employment in that field are needed to pay for the degree. Knowing those values, I think people can debate the financial value of post secondary education more accurately. Again, public perception may be way off in these discussions and data would be very helpful in knowing the real stories today about the value of a 4 year degree.
I did a quick search to to see if I could find some sort of breakdown that showed ranges of debt and the percentage of graduates who fell within each range. (I.e., n% owed less than $5,000, n1% owed between $5001 and $10,000, and so on.) I found this 2015 report from the Urban Institute: http://www.urban.org/sites/default/files/alfresco/publication-pdfs/2000191-Student-Debt-Who-Borrows-Most-What-Lies-Ahead.pdf
Hi, Ed -
I'm not sure this will have all of the answers you're looking for, but it may be able to shed some light on the type of questions you are asking. The U.S. Department of Education's National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) has a wealth of resources that address multiple student perspectives across the post-secondary timeline. Below are links with brief descriptors.
Pre-Post-Secondary
The College Affordability and Transparency Center provides information on how much it costs students to attend different colleges, how fast those costs are going up, and information related to why costs are going up.
Early Post-Secondary
The 2015 Beginning Postsecondary Students Longitudinal Study (BPS) currently surveys cohorts of first-time, beginning students at three points in time: at the end of their first year, and then three and six years after first starting in postsecondary education. It collects data on a variety of topics, including student demographic characteristics, school and work experiences, persistence, transfer, and degree attainment.
Post-Graduation
The 2015 Baccalaureate and Beyond Longitudinal Study (B&B) examines students’ education and work experiences after they complete a bachelor’s degree, with a special emphasis on the experiences of new elementary and secondary teachers.
Additionally, NCES's Quick Stats Data Lab allows anyone to create tables and graphs based on the statistics available for students who received a Bachelor's degree during the 2007-2008 academic year, and who were followed for four years (through 2012). This is an excellent resource for anyone interested in digging more into the wealth of data that NCES has collected for this time period.
It would be great to hear what you, and others with an interest in digging into this data, learn about the outcomes of post-secondary graduates. What is the media possibly missing in its coverage of post-secondary graduates?
Mike Cruse
Career Pathways Moderator
michaelcruse74@gmail.com
Thank you Robert and Michael for the links to data. I now need a free weekend to dive in and crunch some numbers !!!!
As I reviewed the data links you both shared, it got me thinking about the myriad points of data out there collected by numerous organizations. I started to wonder if public ignorance of data processing is possibly a major component of how perceptions are out of line with situations.
In looking at the Maine state standardized tests, Statistics and Data Processing is consistently one of the lowest scoring categories. Perhaps that is because Stats always seem to be the last unit of study curriculum provide or perhaps educators often lack experience with real data sets. Whatever the reason, I fear that those that can "control" the data results and reports generated may gain undue power over those of us without any ability to sift, sort and process the abundant data sets available. Is Data processing and Statistics consistently a lower scoring category on tests in other states I wonder?
I am thinking I may want to step up my learner's explorations into data this next semester. Perhaps I can have them chew into this data you both provided!
Good Morning,
In our GED Center we try to meet with students who are ready for Post-Secondary Education. Most of them need help with the FASA. I have found during these discussions that many students do not understand loans and especially those pertaining to college. So, the "Loan" options are explained in full.
I also agree that the public perception of reality is terribly one-sided. I hear comments when I am in public about employment and Human Services recipients. It makes me sick to my stomach. The public needs to be informed of all the facets of receiving help- Human Services.
Hello colleagues, Thanks for posting this rather startling brief report by Quoctrung Bui , Robert. I have to say I was quite surprised that more than half of survey respondents -- in multiple similar surveys -- thought that the unemployment rate among college graduates is higher than for those without a college degree. According to these surveys, this seems to be a widespread belief among the American public. I plan to ask a few people myself to see what responses I get.
The author suggests that media stories about young college grads living at home and others about the way technology is changing the workplace, as well as the idea that young people are overeducated may have something to do with this misperception. Of course, having a college degree does not guarantee a great job, but as the author points out, "the alternative is a lot worse" financially.
What do members think are the potential implications of this false assumption for our work?
Cheers, Susan Finn Miller
Moderator, College and Career Standards CoP
Unfortunately, this article did not have an option for reader comments. The New York Times allows comments for most articles, which it moderates, so all the snark is filtered out, leaving the thoughts of some very knowledgable people. These thoughts provide much of the missing information mentioned by Edward, and they are the main reason I have a digital subscription to the NYT instead of another paper. In general, these discussions are far superior to any I have encountered in a university classroom, both undergraduate and graduate.
Implication 1: Thanks to the Internet, a great deal of good information is now directly available to adult learners. Their “educators” need to provide them with the skills needed to double check the career promises made by salespeople and marketers who may or may not be ethical. For example, reality TV paints culinary arts as an exciting profession. And, unfortunately, TV is the educational system for many people. (I grew up a little above the poverty line and have a number of first cousins who remained on the other side, so I have some understanding of the gullibility and face-saving distrust of authority and education that goes along with poverty.) When a high-pressure salesperson offers someone from an impoverished background a get-rich-quick opportunity to become a Cordon Bleu chef for only $60K in student loan debt, that person needs to know how to do the research to discover that if they are lucky enough to find a job (other than flipping burgers at Burger King), it will only pay, on average, $22K per year!
Implication 2: To an uncomfortable extent, this election cycle has degenerated into almost the complete antithesis of statesmanlike, journalistic, and businesslike/professional behavior. The promotion of “public ignorance” to support their personal and parochial agendas is creating a distorted understanding of reality among voters and policy makers. As a result, much-needed funding may be directed toward illusory problems while the real ones are neglected.
At the moment, I don’t have time to continue. But I think this is a valuable discussion, and I hope that others will contribute.
All -
Robert, thank you for posting the original article. Despite its shortcomings in covering the issues we see with many adult learners, it has generated some important discussion here. Regarding the first implication you've noted, in addition to educating learners in understanding the data, we also need to help them become more informed consumers. I wonder what examples of math and financial literacy curriculum are context-based within the higher education market? We have curriculum that that teaches math concepts in the context of different career pathways, but I would also advocate for curriculum that looks at these same math concepts through the lens of being consumers of higher education. As the higher education marketplace becomes more and more business-oriented, at both for and non-profit institutions, we need to be educating adult learners to understand and use the data available to them to make the most informed decisions.
Is anyone familiar with math and/or financial literacy curriculum that is based on helping learners better understand the wealth of data available on the higher education marketplace?
Anyone looking for more data and data analysis tools to use with learners, or develop curriculum materials, should check out The Institute for Higher Education Policy (IHEP) and their Post-Sec Data webpage.
Hi Mike and Career Pathway Colleagues:
Here is a post from the Postsecondary Completion group that I think fits in here, too:
Dear Colleagues:
Many of you may be following the discussion about the recent New York Times survey on the unemployment rate for individuals who graduate from a four-your institution. It is related to many of the media reports (and occasional LINCS discussions) about the costs and benefits of a college education (and whether students make it to graduation).
I would like to suggest that the only way for adult learners to have a clear picture of the costs and benefits of college (or any type of postsecondary education and training) is to ask the questions and run the numbers. One of the best publications that I have run across is available in the LINCS Resource Collection: Integrating Career Awareness into the ABE and ESOL Classroom.
I want to highlight the Word format that lets you modify the worksheets to meet the specific needs of your students. Along with activities like, Comparing Schools, earlier activities on career exploration, college and financial aid vocabulary, and educational options are important first steps. The activity that I find adults learn the most from is the informational interview (and it makes a good planning/speaking/writing activity for students).
In addition, Mapping Your Financial Journey: Helping Adults Plan for College, provides worksheet that go into more of the financial details.
How do you help students weigh the cost and benefits of going on?
Cynthia