Cartoon by Jeff Parker
Education as an Investment
Currently being researched.
Researching “the numbers” necessary to determine what level of education a person needs to achieve their goals, meet their aptitude, potential and a chosen life-style.
We see far too many post-grads working jobs that are totally unrelated to their education, its costs and skill level. It’s like buying a thoroughbred to plow the back-forty. That money and time could have gone into a “trade degree” with residual cash to invest in property or other long-term retirement options AND have provided a more rewarding lifestyle and inner-self satisfaction in less time.
WWII America spurred a quantum leap in technical and scientific fields. The “Cold-War” furthered that push with advances in Space exploration, Bio-warfare, and computers plus the R&D for materials development to meet those challenges.
This military need spurred demand for higher educated persons and the need for more technologically skilled to install, operate, and maintain such technology.
Further we see a society become more litigious, fueling the glut of legal-eagles clogging our courts and justice (ha-ha, another paper to come) system today. The law profession needed advanced education adding to the “paper-chase” we’ve been bred to feel is necessary for a quality life.
Another source of the current glut of over-educated “professionals” came from people avoiding the Vietnam War (also known as the Second Indochina War) using educational draft deferments. It is estimated that 5.4 million men were granted deferments, mostly for education during that period and with the wars 20 year existence (November 1, 1955 – April 30, 1975) it produced allot of advanced degrees by men trying to “hang-on” their deferment and not get sucked in.
The 60 year “Sheepskin factory” has now left us short on tradesmen/women and long on master-degreed busboys and bartenders.
The educational “bang for the buck” has diminished (as a whole) and the major shift seems to be demanding a more technical trained workforce so we can keep our infrastructure operational.
Of course this doesn’t mean we don’t need people seeking post-grad degrees to meet the ever increasing scientific generated advances but the ratio for that need has changed.
I believe its time to consider BEFORE a person invests an education what can they afford, will the cost and time meet their needs and desires, and most of all is it worth it!
