If everyone has a college degree, who is going to do the blue collar work?

There are other paths to happiness and self-respect. And a college degree is not what it used to be.

Most of us have read the studies that suggest the more education one has, the more potential to have increased income during a lifetime. And while this might have been true in the past, it is not necessary so in the future. And since when does income equal happiness and self-respect, a question not even asked in these studies equating education to income? And many believe there was a time when a college degree represented imparted knowledge as well as indicated willingness to work hard and persevere. All these qualities appealed to recruiters and companies competing to hire people to help their company succeed. Alas, during the last decade or more, even that assumption has become subject to review dictated by what is really happening.

The best candidate for employment should have brains and some way to show exposure to the school of hard knocks. And certainly those who hire recruiters and candidates look at performance after hiring, as well as education before hiring, salaries, etc. Hence it is for the most basic reasons that the military has already started recruiting more officers from the ranks with the logic that one should be a good non-commissioned officer in order to be a good commissioned officer. And the military sends them to get a college degree to see if they can make it through that wicket. The Israelis already understand this idea. And if the report of 1/5 of IBM employees are from India is correct, then they too have broken the code.

One wonders how we got to this state of over-valuing a college education. Perhaps it began with the GI Bill after WWII, but then these college people had been through the school of hard knocks. They already had experience. Perhaps it was the rise of the soft subjects, the vast increase of women entering colleges, the cultural idealism and elitism of academia, the grade inflation and lowering of testing standards that denigrated the value of a college education. Who knows. But those who run companies who do many things, to include build and repair things, know what works and what does not work. Here there is little room for idealism and double-standards.

One does not have to be a math major to think of a triangle, with the USA population of 300 million part of the top of the food chain while others in the 6 and ½ billion world build and maintain and repair things. Fine if the status quo goes on forever, which it won’t. Are we to expect legal or illegal immigrants to build our houses, repair our refrigerators, and maintain our lawns in perpetuity. Are we to expect enough Americans will “fall out of the college pipeline” to do these blue collar things so necessary for a culture and society to exist. Are we to look down on them as in the past, a most corrosive cultural divide for those that believe it now. Just maintaining an auto these days is beyond the old time jack leg mechanic days. It takes smart well educated people to do these auto maintain and repair things. And they are worth a lot to society, and bring home some hefty salaries that support families, and happiness, and self-respect.

All married parents of children seek the best for their children. (The motivation for adults having children out of wedlock is a little more questionable?) But all seek to promote happiness and self-respect for their children. Nowhere does a college degree enter this equation or thought. Meanwhile, we have a country to run.