Are There Enough Jobs For College Graduates?

This is a quote I got from someone on another website where the conversation was about Bernie Sander's free college proposal. This person gave this response. I wanted some opinions on it.

 

My view is that freshmen students need to research the job prospects related to a particular major before deciding on a major. I heard not enough students do this before picking a major.

 

The quote from the other site is frankly fucked up in so many ways.

The problem with Western countries is that their governments are dominated by transnational corporations. Rather than stimulating growth in the countries these govts are meant to represent, they're simply stimulating growth in whatever tinpot sweatshop country is most convenient to them and taking a nice fat wad of cash for it.

In the past, govts stimulated their own national economy, and corporations provided wealth for that economy. But thats all gone.
So what we have is the first and third world merging. Rich Chinese, and dirt poor Americans/Europeans of almost coolie like proportions.
But its cash from the first world taxpayer thats actually funding the offshore crowd to make their next profits in some sweatshop in Asia or wherever.

So we have a ridiculous situation of the media condemning young people for skilling themselves and wanting to be ambitious. The idea that McJobs and shitshovelling are actually the great answer. Its not graduates that haven't kept up with employers. Its employers can't be bothered to keep up with the better skilled labourforce.

Ofcourse the fat cat clubs will say "ahhh there is a shortage of candidates". But thats a whopping lie. They want a 21 yr old with a degree AND 5yrs experience of subservience AND salary demands lower than 15 yrs ago. As for spending a little while training the candidate up, well there's more chance on them being given a complimentary Bentley on day one.

The problem is that corporations are essentially "UnAmerican" or actually AntiAmerican/AntiBritish or whatever.

Sooner or later people will realise that education has become another money making racket. Young grads are technically bankrupt with little chance of prestige jobs - so why waste years of their lives ontop? The only way round it is if the State says "we have an interest, so we will invest, and we will pressure companies to support their nation - or they can fuck off to China".

Deskilling a skilled economy like America or Europe is a disaster. The skilled will retire and the unskilled simply won't create enough to support the national economy.
Mass importation of even cheaper unskilled labour is not the answer. So it has to be to create more skilled jobs inside national borders.

 

Being a recent undergrad at a quality university in Canada, I think the problem isn't enough jobs that require a college education, the problem
is misrepresentation of the jobs available at the end. Like engineering? Sure there's jobs in Canada. Oil patch, "defence", resource mining.
Disillusionment for anyone with a sense of ethics ensues. Like biology? Sure, some people get to study ecosystems in Canada, maybe
engineer bacteria in a lab, or do something cool. Probably - your going to be signing off on environmental assessment reports for resource
extraction. Like Math (I do, it's my degree) - Sure, you might work for the CSA, or you might get a job at Stats Can crunching numbers
for your fellow Canadians. Probably - your going to work in finance, selling your soul a day at a time, where you construct derivatives
that allow big banks to skirt financial regulations.

With some lucky exceptions - anyone with a sense of ethics falls into a sense of despair, or compromises those ethics and becomes a disgusting
pig.

Moroever, there is a general misunderstanding by the public about the purpose of academy. It is a modern phenomenon to train people for specific
jobs via academy. The point of academy is the cultivation of the most beautiful parts of humanity - mathematics, art, literature, cultural studies.
It is not to grind out workers to suit the purpose of industry. This is a perversion of the point of academy. If you want a job, pick up a trade
and start an apprenticeship. Start a business. Learn some skills. If you want to learn to think, if you want to appreciate human culture, with
the experience being the reward, then go to university.

I personally think that the letting go of administration by professors to "public service professionals" is a major driver of this problem. These
professionals misunderstand the point of academy, and try to sell the middle class life ticket with college degrees. Whether they believe their
own hot air or not is debatable, but it is wrong. Many universities spend more on advertising, administration, and fluff then they do on recruitment
of the brightest minds in humanity. It is a travesty.

 

New jobs, careers, and businesses have to be invented. The current work, and its' new openings, is not enough.

 

The kid that goes to college for free could be the one in a billion that invents an entire new industry. Could be a person that never went to college.

 

I agree with this. I think the best thing someone can do when they sign up for college is research the job market when choosing a major.

 

getting through college should be an option for anyone with the intelligence and the work ethic to actually earn a college degree, not for anyone with the money for tuition. so, free college is a great idea, but only if at the same time college classes are altered so that you actually need to have a brain, and make the effort to use it, in order to pass. unlike current college, where as long as you pay your tuition you're basically buying a 3.0 GPA.

 

There aren't enough jobs for college level graduates now, but that isn't the problem that free education would be solving. What it would be doing is leveling the playing field for people from lower socioeconomic backgrounds. They wouldn't necessarily be stuck in that situation and would then have the same opportunities as everyone else. Not to mention those who do make it through college now are often saddled with crippling debt the rest of their lives.