Why isn’t a bachelors degree enough

by Jillian @ http://blueshelled.com . June 22, 2011 . 7:41PM

Being in the fields I’m in professionally, I hear a lot of people that are upset in regards to the economy. I think they are probably feeling that way with some righteous judgment, at the same time, there is a sense of entitlement that comes from the folks with a bachelors degree. I’ve often heard, “I have a bachelors degree! I should be able to get a job without trouble and instead I’m battling people that barely have a high school diploma. I was told that the key to getting a job when I was an adult was the bachelors degree. Why is this so hard?”

Well, probably for quite a few reasons.

The bachelors degree isn’t the magic key to having a job. No degree is in an economy where jobs are scarce and even Mcdonalds isn’t hiring as many as are willing to work there. Here is what you don’t want to hear. Your degree isn’t worth as much as it used to be. Plenty of people get degrees that don’t deserve them or don’t have the skills a degree purports, so a degree doesn’t mean as much as it used to.

I know, it’s sad. It’s painful. It’s true.

What I know is that students can no-show to classes most of the semester and beg amnesty and in most cases, they can get it. Colleges now don’t want to be known as “hard” or they lose tuition money and the goal is student retention, even if it means giving in to students that don’t deserve it. An unexcused absence is almost always overlooked and students that don’t deserve an A, B, or C and truly deserve the D or the F, will generally get a better grade if they ask a professor for clemency. Why? Because adjuncts have little flexibility when it comes down to what they can say no to and remember, the goal is to retain students.

Fine. We can blame the adjuncts, of which I’m one, but then we also need to remember that schools will accept just about anyone and as long as they meet requirements, they get to graduate. Ds get degrees. So, when those D degrees go out for employment, they can say they have their bachelors just like those that got A-degrees.

The government has made it much easier now to go to school. Everyone can get loans. Not everyone can pay them back, but everyone can go. That has made the market saturated with people with bachelors degrees. According to Factcheck.org and the Census Bureau, 27% of the population has at least a bachelors degree. Welcome to your competition. It’s not a status symbol anymore. It’s also not necessarily a sign of hard work (see above paragraph) or intelligence. It is a sign that you met the requirements. People can get college credit in pickleball (Oh my gosh, do I love pickleball, but that’s another blog post). If I can get 2 college credits for playing pickleball, what indication does that have that I’m a well-rounded, intelligent person?

Lastly, the jobs that are available don’t necessarily need a bachelors degree. What I’ve seen are a bunch of overqualified people scrambling for jobs that are beneath their status because there are no jobs available. Yes, I know you are overqualified to file papers and answer the telephone, however, that is what is available. People in their 50s are now delivering pizza to make ends meet. People with doctoral degrees are wondering if they will make retirement.

Why isn’t a bachelors degree enough? Because there isn’t enough work for everyone to go around. Of course we could stir things up by bringing up illegal immigration, our country’s debt, extreme outsourcing or other reasons why there might not be enough jobs available, but the bottom line is that there aren’t the funds for the people that need them, we have a number of baby boomers that can’t leave the jobs they have to make room for others to take them because they aren’t financially secure enough to retire, and people that start working a lot earlier and are qualified to do more things thanks to the advancement of technology.

It doesn’t get better, it gets worse. Things have to change. This is why your bachelors isn’t enough. Now, the question is what do you do about it?