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Dayton Daily News education reporter Scott Elliott writes about schools, kids, teaching and learning.
Home > Blogs > Get on the Bus > Archives > 2006 > June > 05 > Entry
Myth vs. reality? High tech jobs and the future
Everybody knows that the jobs of the near future, the jobs our kids will need their schools to prepare them for, will be more high tech and require more advanced skills in math and science than every before. That’s why everybody is going to need a college education.
But what if it wasn’t true?
Richard Rothstein, a research associate at the Economic Policy Institute and former New York Times education columnist, told education reporters from around the country Friday that he is not opposed to teaching kids more math and science. But he is afraid education policy-makers are building their case for change, and making decisions about how kids are educated, based on a huge myth.
Using data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, he first demonstrated where the conventional wisdom has come from — the simple fact is that college-educated Americans make far more than those who don’t go to college. And the gap is growing.
In 1973, a college degree on average translated to 25 percent more pay for men and 38 percent more for women. Today, a man with a college degree makes 41 percent more and a woman with a degree makes 46 percent more than those without. Figures like these are helping fuel the push to try to send everyone to college.
But what do those huge gaps mean in real dollars? In 1973, the average worker with a college degree made $19.77 an hour while a worker with a high school diploma only made $13.56 (in 2003 dollars).
By 2003, the college educated worker’s hourly wage had risen, but not by as much as you might expect — to $23.44. Meanwhile, the wage for a high school educated worker stood nearly still, at $13.57 an hour. (These figures are from a report called “The state of working America 2004-05”)
Perhaps this is because there is less demand for lower skilled jobs? Think again.
Rothstein argued that while jobs requiring higher education are growing rapidly, they are growing from a very small base. Meanwhile, jobs not requiring higher education are not declining — they also are growing, And while the demand for lower-skilled workers is growing more slowly, it is growing from a much larger base.
One of Rothstein’s charts showed (I’ve updated these numbers, which should have been in millions):
- 68,500,000 jobs requiring a high school diploma or less in 2004, or about 47 percent of all jobs in the U.S. economy.
- Far fewer jobs — 35,500,000 or 24 percent of all U.S. jobs — require at least a bachelor’s degree.
Those numbers in 10 years are projected to look like this:
- Jobs requiring a high school graduate or less — 75,400,000 or 46 percent of all jobs at that time
- Jobs requiring a college degree — 46,800,000 or 28 percent
These numbers demonstrate Rothstein’s point. In 10 years, there will be 11,300,000 more high-skilled jobs and 6,900,000 less-skilled jobs. Even so, the nature of the economy really won’t be changing very much or very fast and nearly half of all jobs still will not require a college degree.
More from Rothstein:
- Most of the new jobs being created in the U.S. are in fields like administrative support and sales, not high tech.
- Wages for mathematicians and scientists have actually fallen over 30 years.
- The growing wage gap between college-educated workers and those with high school only has been driven more by the collapse of unions and other labor market supports that held wages up for lower-skilled workers in the past. It’s not a matter of more demand for college-educated workers.
Rothstein says these realities need to be considered in education policy-making. For instance vocational education — a recent target for cuts at the federal level — should perhaps play a bigger, not smaller, role in school systems going forward.
Permalink | Comments (9) | Categories: My Favorite Posts, Teaching and Learning
Comments
By Karen
June 8, 2006 9:19 AM | Link to this
I suppose it does sound vague, until one encounters someone who really doesn’t know how to learn outside their preferred style. With regard to learning styles and interests, not everything that students NEED to learn is going to be interesting, nor does every topic lend itself to being taught to each possible learning style. And the real world is the same way. Sometimes people have to do things that are not interesting or not what they particularly like to do. (For example, educate oneself about candidates or issues before voting.) It only adds to the pain of having to deal with it if one doesn’t know HOW to deal with it.By Mary
June 7, 2006 4:26 PM | Link to this
“Learning how to learn” sounds pretty vague. Seems to me if you are learning something, you are learning something. Learning something and applying it feels good and you want to learn something else. Some kids sit bored and are not learning squat. Keep in mind learning styles, abilities and interests are different for different students.By Karen
June 7, 2006 11:17 AM | Link to this
Wasn’t producing good citizens the original point to having a public education available to everyone? I agree,Oldprof,learning how to learn and how to evaluate and use what one has learned are the important things.By Oldprof
June 7, 2006 12:50 AM | Link to this
Well Mary, there’s the difference. I taught myself keyboarding, using an old manual typewriter and a book. I also taught myself web page design, hand tools, and how to preprogram all my VCRs. If I had only learned, in school, how to maintain aircraft, how to keyboard, or how to punch cards, I would not have attained the study, analytical, language, and critical skills that enable me to become proficient without formal instruction. Educate the whole student, and the student will be ready to enter college or trade school (or to apprentice in construction trades); moreover the student will be able to see through propaganda and to express views in our open society. Personally, I’m more worried about citizenship than I am about employers.By Mary
June 6, 2006 2:20 PM | Link to this
Old prof, I am not sure the education system really differentiates between education and training. To many of us, education systems have become bureaucratic credentialing systems that sometimes impede people from getting on with their lives and contributions and do not necessarily focus on nourishing a knowledge base. I believe my daughter learned as much in her 18 months of aircraft maintenance certification and on the job as many college students learn in four years for a bachelor’s degree. A lot of college socialization is spent on burning out brain cells with alcohol, incurring tons of student loan debt, etc. I was not encouraged or allowed to learn keyboarding in high school because I was on the college prep track. Now who does not use keyboarding. As an orbital analyst working for NORAD I even had to punch my own cards. I look upon those days as a learning experience and still miss those skills that would have made my jobs then and now a lot smoother.By Scott Elliott
June 6, 2006 11:42 AM | Link to this
Mary is correct. The numbers should be in millions. I’ve updated them as such. Thanks!By Oldprof
June 6, 2006 9:08 AM | Link to this
Rothstein is making a fundamental error; he’s mistaking “education” for “training.” Those of us who’ve been in this game for a while know that the rules change every few years. Back in the ’60s, card-punch training was huge! Ads for every for-profit academy and voc-tech school trumpeted it as a great career, and it didn’t require a bachelor’s degree! Of course, everyone who completed those programs had to re-train in a little over 10 years as punch cards were eliminated by magnetic media. The point is: education prepares a person for self-training, citizenship, and leadership in community, whereas training simply provides a ready workforce for employers (who may or may not need them). I could cite numerous degree programs in higher ed. that don’t regularly generate placements in a career—was that college education worthless? I rather think it generated a person with a well-developed mind.By Mary
June 6, 2006 7:53 AM | Link to this
I think when you were quoting some job numbers from one of Rothstein’s charts, there should have been some more zeroes in them (maybe the numbers were supposed to be in thousands). However, I think there has been an overemphasis on students heading for college as a factor in evaluating a school district. My school district likes to tout that 90% of our student body goes to college. My comment is what is that figure really telling us. I believe in today’s paper, Florida joins South Carolina in a law requiring high school students to declare a major or cluster while in high school. As written, it sounds like a good idea because it acknowledges high school students need to and want to go into different career paths. Our economic and life needs cannot be sustained by just grooming our youth for jobs that require a college diploma. I believe yesterday’s AOL news linked to a list of hot, high paying jobs that do not require a college degree. Two CEO’s were mentioned who do not have a college degree - Bill Gates (dropped out of Harvard) and the Oracle CEO.By Derwood
June 6, 2006 1:00 AM | Link to this
I’m wondering what kind of impact Microsoft and their MCSE and MCSA certifications are possibly to blame for the shift? Its literally possible for a high school student to start education in these programs and be certified in 9 to 12 months. Someone with an MCSE can find a job with any Fortune 500 company in short order. They don’t have to have a degree or even any credits toward a degree as long as they have the certificate.