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Tuesday, August 21, 2012

New Studies Weigh College Value And Cost

Two new studies offer emphatic answers to much-discussed questions about higher education: Yes, a college degree is worth it, but yes, it's the middle-class that's getting particularly squeezed with student debt in the pursuit of one. 

Both studies make persuasive cases, though each could be misunderstood without important context. 

The first, released last week by the Lumina Foundation and Georgetown University's Center on Education and the Workforce, seems to thoroughly demolish the idea that the Great Recession diminished the value of a college degree. Yes, recent college grads have struggled more than usual to find jobs matching their training. But overall, even as unemployment was rising past 10 percent, the authors found the economy actually added 200,000 jobs for workers with a bachelor's degree. Since the recovery began, it's created 2 million more.

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7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Reverse the process.Train specifically for available jobs.Why colleges would even have useless courses is anyones guess.

Anonymous said...

What recovery? Where? I bet they were mostly government jobs. And just who is the 'IT' that created these jobs. The only job I see here is a SNOW job...

Anonymous said...

I bet they got a government grant to fund these studies. That means of course that they 'found' what they were told to find.

Anonymous said...

What percent of the college graduates would agree with this (if any)? Not me.

Anonymous said...

10:48-True.I never thought of it that way.

Anonymous said...

i don't believe this skewed study. i believe young people today should get some additional education, don't go in debt at all, and really work at starting your own business using your passion, gifts and interests. just go for it while you don't have a lot of responsibilities and debt.

Anonymous said...

>>>Why colleges would even have useless courses is anyones guess.<<< If you are forced to take the useless course to satisfy a requirement, you (or someone) has to pay for it. Just follow the money.