Wait . . . what? Both college degrees AND high school diplomas are worthless now? We're doomed . . .

Photo above - Wanda the welder. This girl is going to buy a home of her own, some day.

I have a college degree in English Lit (minor in Cultural Anthropology). I’m a loser – those degrees would be worthless if I was graduating in 2025. The only reason I’m making it is because my parents paid my tuition, instead of brushing me off and telling me to take out 4 years of student loans. (There are $2 Trillion in unpaid student loans outstanding now. Hundreds of billions in new loans are made each year.)

If I had followed my high school guidance counsellor's advice, I might be WORSE off. Accounting, software coding . .. THOSE are the careers of the future, he told me. What a load of BS. Those are the jobs being wiped out right now by all kinds of automation. AI is only the latest threat.

Corporate hiring managers say 80% of high school graduates lack the basic skills to do ANYTHING in the workplace. Unable to get along with co-workers, showing up on time, basic math, solving simple problems, showing up on time, not pilfering the inventory. See link below.

My father was smarter than me. He only had a high school diploma, but he was a whiz at math, showing up on time, at spending less than he earned, and avoiding committing felonies. He’s the reason I didn’t have to take out student loans. My father also bought a home, put savings in the stock market, and briefly ran his own business. He never took a European or Vegas vacation.

I have zero statistics to prove it, but most people would agree that high school grads today are less prepared than those of a generation or two ago. High school kids used to work at McDonalds, or as construction laborers, or on local farms when not in class. Now those jobs are done by migrants, whether “documented" or not. Kids aren’t being slackers for staying at home and playing videogames. The shift manager at Wendy’s is hiring only workers from her country of origin, because she feels sorry for them, and they can converse in their native tongue when not doing customer-facing tasks.

Nobody is going to be able to buy a house or start a business based on today’s high school diploma. If they go to college instead, it’s a massive roll of the dice, and they are as likely to end up in loan default as not. They are as likely to drop out of college as not. If they get a degree, they are as likely to have a first job unrelated to that degree as not.

Let's not to simplistically blame public school teachers. They just do what the district administrators tell them. The administrators are happiest when parents DON’T turn up at school board meetings, and start asking questions. Anyway, when parents do show up, they seem more interested in ferreting out LBGT library than talking about SAT scores. Librarians are stocking the shelves with stuff nobody ever heard of, without even reading it first. Kid’s aren’t checking out school library books anyway.

If column this was only about the $300 billion in new student loans being made each year, soon to be uncollectable, the answer would be simple: stop throwing gas on the fire at the same time last years loans going into default by the Trillions.

America's education problems are more basic: our career counsellors are idiots, our kids can’t get after school work, and nobody trusts either a high school or college diploma.

If I was a high school junior today, I'd ask about an apprenticeship in welding.

I’m just sayin’ . . .


Opinion: Why America has lost faith in college and what to do about it

Future Workforce Could Be at Risk as Hiring Managers Doubt High School Graduates' Readiness