What doesn't necessarily cure poverty

[ksen]

Oh, and the entire list at trausti's link, all 129 majors, have starting salaries above poverty level. So I guess trausti is arguing that the people in poverty with post-high school education mostly studied things not on that list of 129 majors?

They have starting salaries above poverty level (for a single person?) if they manage to get a full time job in their field. If the only use your philosophy degree gets you is asking "why do you want fries with that" than these figures do not really apply.

Yeah, philosophy degrees are worth a bit more than that.

http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/top-...more-than-an-accounting-degree-121403186.html

 

[Derec]

Yeah, philosophy degrees are worth a bit more than that.

Perhaps, but they have the funnier "fries with that" joke.

 

[arkirk]

Yeah, philosophy degrees are worth a bit more than that.

Perhaps, but they have the funnier "fries with that" joke.

Have you ever known a Philosophy major? Where would they be working? Possibly in some university. How many jobs are like that? These positions are perhaps hard to fill as so few people consider Philosophy as a career. Philosophies are like pinnions...everybody's got one. I suspect philosophy degrees are purposefully made very expensive so rich kids can find work.

 

[DBT]

Not everyone can be a doctor, lawyer, executive, etc. There is only so much room at the 'top' of the heap.

 

[Toni]

Perhaps, but they have the funnier "fries with that" joke.

Have you ever known a Philosophy major? Where would they be working? Possibly in some university. How many jobs are like that? These positions are perhaps hard to fill as so few people consider Philosophy as a career. Philosophies are like pinnions...everybody's got one. I suspect philosophy degrees are purposefully made very expensive so rich kids can find work.

There are far more jobs for philosophy majors than just teaching at a university (which requires a Ph.D.) A friend of mine is married to a computer scientist (well employed in the field) and she told me that computer science and IT positions often hire people with strong backgrounds/majors in philosophy because if its strong root in logic and other critical thinking skills. Those same traits make philosophy majors well placed to go to law school, to work in any number of jobs in publishing, epidemiology, medical and business ethics, foreign service work, and a variety of other positions in both public and private sectors.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

What gets you out of poverty is not paying to go to school but getting paid a decent wage for working.

But if you don't have skills of value you aren't going to be of much value to employers and aren't going to get a good wage. You have this strange disconnect between productivity and pay.

Money works best when it circulates, and that happens when it allowed in the hands of the greater number of people (the 99% as opposed to the 1%)

Money circulates no matter who has it.

- - - Updated - - -

You shouldn't need a college degree just to keep food on the table, a roof over your head and occasional trips to the doctor's office.

You don't need a college degree to accomplish this. It won't be as nice a life as you want but it certainly can be done.

The real problem is jobs that are less than 40 hr/wk.

 

[NobleSavage]

I'm not against the government paying for college, but I often wonder if it would make more sense to put the money into higher quality K-12? (Especially in poor neighborhoods with shit public schools.) 12 years seems like more than enough time to make someone job ready.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

Perhaps, but they have the funnier "fries with that" joke.

Have you ever known a Philosophy major? Where would they be working? Possibly in some university. How many jobs are like that? These positions are perhaps hard to fill as so few people consider Philosophy as a career. Philosophies are like pinnions...everybody's got one. I suspect philosophy degrees are purposefully made very expensive so rich kids can find work.

As has been said, it's always fun to joke about philosophy majors only being able to get jobs serving fries. There are, however, of course far more careers which are available to them. There's the burger flipping, the guy who cleans the toilet and jobs all throughout the fast food joint. Those don't even get into the higher responsibility roles like picking up the boss's dry cleaning.

Don't listen to the guys who diss the employment prospects of philosophy majors.

 

[lpetrich]

If everybody tried to major in business administration, then what? When it turns out that it isn't possible for everybody to be a business leader, then what? Is it the fault of those biz-admin majors? Even though they majored in something that certain people think that people ought to major in.

 

[Canard DuJour]

College education doesn't become an automatic solution for unemployment because you saturate the market with degrees. You need more jobs available in order for all for the college grads to move into employment in their degree related field.

Exactly.

Workers are, for the most part, paid according to how easily replaced they are. The more educated the labour pool becomes, the easier you are to replace.

What gets you out of poverty is not paying to go to school but getting paid a decent wage for working.

There has been a fundamental shift is the valuing of work and workers and a general acceptence of the capture and hording of wealth by a new aristocracy.

Money works best when it circulates, and that happens when it allowed in the hands of the greater number of people (the 99% as opposed to the 1%)

Exactly. Education might be part of the solution, but ineducation isn't really the problem.

 

[Duke Leto]

"That which does not cure me can only make me weaker!"

No, I don't think that'll play in Peoria.

 

[dismal]

They have starting salaries above poverty level (for a single person?) if they manage to get a full time job in their field. If the only use your philosophy degree gets you is asking "why do you want fries with that" than these figures do not really apply.

Yeah, philosophy degrees are worth a bit more than that.

http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/top-...more-than-an-accounting-degree-121403186.html

This appears to me to be one of these "lies, damned lies and statistics" things.

I imagine back in the 1970s enough people got Philosophy degrees and went on to become lawyers or MBAs and such to skew this number up.

I would not imagine these stats reflect the value of having a BA in Philosophy in the current labor market.

I have been in a lot of hiring discussion across several different firms and never once have I heard someone utter "Oh awesome, he's got a philosophy degree he must be good at logic".

If you want someone with a specific skill like accounting you get someone with an accounting degree. If you want someone with raw analytical horsepower you are going to train up you tend to look for an engineering degree, or math, or computer science and some record of accomplishment.

 

[Bronzeage]

Not everyone can be a doctor, lawyer, executive, etc. There is only so much room at the 'top' of the heap.

This may be true, but how are we to know who among us can be a doctor, lawyer, or executive, and who can't?

 

[Tom Sawyer]

Not everyone can be a doctor, lawyer, executive, etc. There is only so much room at the 'top' of the heap.

This may be true, but how are we to know who among us can be a doctor, lawyer, or executive, and who can't?

Gattaca had a good answer to that until that dipshit Ehtan Hawke came along and tried to fuck everything up.

 

[ksen]

Yeah, philosophy degrees are worth a bit more than that.

http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/top-...more-than-an-accounting-degree-121403186.html

This appears to me to be one of these "lies, damned lies and statistics" things.

I imagine back in the 1970s enough people got Philosophy degrees and went on to become lawyers or MBAs and such to skew this number up.

I would not imagine these stats reflect the value of having a BA in Philosophy in the current labor market.

I have been in a lot of hiring discussion across several different firms and never once have I heard someone utter "Oh awesome, he's got a philosophy degree he must be good at logic".

If you want someone with a specific skill like accounting you get someone with an accounting degree. If you want someone with raw analytical horsepower you are going to train up you tend to look for an engineering degree, or math, or computer science and some record of accomplishment.

This appears to be one of those anecdote things.

While you personally may never have been involved in hiring a philosophy major for a job doesn't mean that there aren't firms hiring them today or that the salary numbers are extrapolated from the 1970s when philosophy majors were actually hired by businesses.

 

[dismal]

This appears to be one of those anecdote things.

The "I have been" sorta gave it away, huh?

 

[ksen]

You shouldn't need a college degree just to keep food on the table, a roof over your head and occasional trips to the doctor's office.

Would it be a hinderance?

What if a person graduated high school with the requisite education which had prepared them for a college education, but chose another path? Could their elementary and secondary education be a deciding factor in whether they lived above the poverty line?

Would it be a hindrance? No.

But the topic of the thread is to address the argument of those that say education is the answer when the people in poverty today are much better educated than the people in poverty 40 years ago and yet are still in poverty.

 

[dismal]

Would it be a hinderance?

What if a person graduated high school with the requisite education which had prepared them for a college education, but chose another path? Could their elementary and secondary education be a deciding factor in whether they lived above the poverty line?

Would it be a hindrance? No.

But the topic of the thread is to address the argument of those that say education is the answer when the people in poverty today are much better educated than the people in poverty 40 years ago and yet are still in poverty.

People have more degrees in general (hesitate to say better educated) so it's not a surprise that the unemployed have better degrees than they used to. Most data still show a strong and increasing positive income benefit to educational attainment.

If your point is that having a degree of somesort does not guarantee you a good income for life I don't think anyone disagrees.

 

[Bronzeage]

Would it be a hinderance?

What if a person graduated high school with the requisite education which had prepared them for a college education, but chose another path? Could their elementary and secondary education be a deciding factor in whether they lived above the poverty line?

Would it be a hindrance? No.

But the topic of the thread is to address the argument of those that say education is the answer when the people in poverty today are much better educated than the people in poverty 40 years ago and yet are still in poverty.

The topic seems a bit disingenuous. It may be possible to present statistics which show there are some educated people who still live in poverty, but the two terms in question, poverty and education, are sufficiently vague to leave many questioned still unanswered. No one is going to claim people are worse off for their education, however little it may translate into financial success.

We can assume that people in poverty cannot pay for their own higher education, so the tuition was paid by someone else, generally the tax payers.

Is the real implication of this topic that money spent educating poor people is a waste of resources and better spent on something else?

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I'm not against the government paying for college, but I often wonder if it would make more sense to put the money into higher quality K-12? (Especially in poor neighborhoods with shit public schools.) 12 years seems like more than enough time to make someone job ready.

The big problem with the inner city schools is the students. The world's best teacher can't overcome students who aren't interested in learning.