I hate it when I spend an hour and a half writing a response to a newspaper article only to discover as I’m wrapping it up that the article I read was a cropped version of a longer article that addressed all of my complaints.
Category: Newsroom, Server Room
About the Author
6 Responses to Things I Hate
Leave a Reply
please enter your email address on this page.
Here’s something to write about: a 34 year-old who is $80k in debt. I so want to smack this guy, and the woman who makes excuses for people like him.
What is it about some college grads that they feel they’re too good to work?
Anyway, after you get to the page, you’ll have to click on “video” on the right. (I couldn’t get a direct link to work.)
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/01/business/01student.html?_r=1#
I touched on some of that here.
Most of the guy in the video’s debt is from student loans, which explains a lot. That’s hard to get out from under. The other $25k is consumer debt, which is more problematic. If he incurred that while going to college, that’s somewhat understandable. Except that it says that he moved “to New York” and works a low-paying job. Sounds like he should have left New York some time ago if he had some place to return to.
I want to smack the people who convince gullible 18-year-olds that it’s okay to spend four years of your life and go $60k into debt for college without a clear idea of how you’re going to make it pay off.
Unfortunately, a lot of the time it’s the parents themselves.
Too many employers treat college as a gatekeeper, by hiring only degree-holders even when having a degree is largely irrelevant to the job duties.
Working in education, I can see two sides. On the one, yes, “college degree as a gatekeeper” is pretty inane at times. On the other hand, I like the idea of people going to college, because it’s how I make my living.
True “entry-level” jobs shouldn’t require a degree, because we theoretically should be offering them to people without one; high school/college students, mothers reentering the workforce (post-divorce or not), etc. The unfortunate reality is that the “entry-level” category of job, at least in Colosse, has ceased to be for these people and has gone towards the under-the-table, “questionable legal status” population instead. That’s left an ugly void where younger people do indeed see the “only” way to get into the world as going through college so that they can “jump” past the old “entry-level” positions, substituting a few years working in the retail or service industry (department store, restaurant, etc) with a degree.