A DAY ago, I had a short debate with a fellow pragmatic about the importance of education in one's life--whether a four-year bachelor's degree can reward you with a better job, brighter career prospects, and higher wages. One distinguishable factor we considered in this discourse is the fact that he has not yet completed his degree, yet he is earning more than I do - one who tasted victory after the years of struggle. Thereafter, I questioned the notion if the labor market today is truly looking for marketable skills acquired during college or skills in general regardless of whether you had earned that in paper or not.
For the past decade, people who graduated from college earned more money, on average, than those who just had high school diplomas. They rise easier in the ranks especially on the occupational ladder. If you are a graduate of Economics with an M.B.A. and don a suit and tie, you do not want to belong with the “average-earners.” You had worked so hard to acquire this, and would want to signal employers that your resume contains the cognitive competence they need in the company. Economists call this as the “human-capital” theory.
However, a number of things have changed that contradict this theory with technology playing a big role. According to one study, only twenty percent of employees in a corporation, like salespeople, have college degrees and the rest of the percentage were hired because of their skills; skills they had acquired through experience and mastery of the field they are in. Employers are always on the lookout for numbers thus they need productive workers with specific skills.
Let us factor the other side of the plane that has boomed through the years - the virtual / home-based workers--those who can do anything under the sun behind their laptops. I have personally seen people, for this context, mothers, who left their corporate jobs to be virtual assistants at home multi-tasking like breastfeeding and generating reports for customers at the same time. Because of this, wages became flat for those mint-fresh graduates and have risen for those who can deliver the numbers employers need.
So what purpose does college really serve for students? How can it compete with rapid advances in data analysis, artificial intelligence, analyzing financial trends today when aside from undergraduate workers, computers can now perform tasks that were carried out by college students before? Have universities and institutions lacked teaching valuable skills that can meet with the labor market demands? What is shocking to know is that an estimated number of 700,000 graduates this year will lounge among the unemployed since there are simply not enough jobs for them. Will these graduates sign up for jobs that do not require college degrees then?
That night, nobody won the argument. He had a point; I had one too. The moment I tossed that cap in the air three years ago, I knew I had to carve out a niche of my own. Have not found it yet but I know I have to test the waters.