on massive technological change, there were not enough unfilled jobs in the economy to absorb the large number of young people graduating from high school. Governments faced a seemingly obvious choice: let the students enrol in a partially subsidized university system for four or more years, keeping them out of the labour market while they developed some saleable skills. Or, on the other hand, let them join the ranks of the idle and unemployed. Colleges and universities, if they did nothing else, served as a holding pen for a large reserve labour force that, if economic growth occurred as hoped, could capitalize on future job opportunities.
The college degree did not stop working as a route to prosperity and career progress, which should, in any case, be measured more in terms of job and life satisfaction than annual income. But it worked for fewer and fewer students all the time. With national dropout rates ranging from under 10 percent in nations like Germany to over 50 percent in the United States, millions of university students left the system each year without attaining the desired credential. Many of these, of course, found their feet through entrepreneurship, personal effort, family connections, or specialized training. But large numbers bore the mark of failure, of falling off the twenty-first-century career train, left to fend for themselves, degreeless, in a world awash in equally unqualified young people.
Always remember, though, that for a lucky and skilled minority, the college or university degree worked brilliantly. Without the opportunity for advanced study, these students might not have been able to secure the stable, high-paying jobs that launched them on a comfortable and productive life. Note in passing that the evidence is strong that students from wealthy backgrounds are far more likely to end up wealthy themselves. Perhaps the most assured route to a high income is having high-income parents and a stable family background. “Power couples” conceive bright children and bring them up in stable homes—only 9 percent of college-educated mothers who give birth each year are unmarried, compared with 61 percent of high school dropouts. They stimulate their children relentlessly: children of professionals hear thirty-two million more words by the age of four than those of parents on welfare.[11] Recognize, too, that many who did not go to college or graduate from university can also do well economically, largely because of hard work, personal qualities, technical skills and training, risk-taking, family support, pure luck, or specialized talent—think Bill Gates, LeBron James, and Taylor Swift. There are plumbers, pipefitters, real estate entrepreneurs, dealers at top casinos and hotels, franchise operators, building contractors, high-quality hairdressers, long-haul truckers, and many other working-class and technical personnel who earn upwards of $75,000 a year—or more than teachers in most states. In other words, not going to university can also be quite remunerative and personally satisfying, something that too many educators and politicians forget or ignore.
But here is the kicker. Americans spend billions each year on the world’s largest and most impressive college and university system, with over several thousand degree-granting institutions. It’s hard to say exactly how many billions of dollars are involved, but an article in The Atlantic estimated that the US federal government spent $69 billion in 2013 just on various grant programs to universities and colleges, not including loans.[12] Total outstanding student loans have now passed $1 trillion. Families spend billions each year, incurring sizable debts to capitalize on the perceived opportunities for their children. Young people devote at least four years and as much as a quarter of a million dollars in the hope that they will be able to convert their studies into a decent career. This is a staggering investment, one now being replicated around the world, based on uncertain and unspecified returns. This is gambling of the highest order.
Weighing Personal Qualities Against Credentials
There is a grand statistical debate taking place about the actual earnings of college and university graduates. On average, college graduates earn significantly more than non-college graduates. Is the college degree responsible for those increased earnings? Clearly “yes,” in the case of accredited fields like Medicine and Accounting. No degree, no high-paying job. But consider these other elements. Smarter young people are more likely to go to college than people who are less intellectually gifted. Is it intelligence that produces the higher income or the credential? Hard-working, motivated, and conscientious young adults are more likely to succeed at university—and in the workforce. Should we credit the personal qualities or the college degree for their success as adults? People from wealthy families are much more likely to go to college and even more likely to graduate. Is income really the important dependent variable, rather than intelligence or education? After all, the non-college-educated children of wealthier parents tend to have higher incomes than the college-educated children of poorer parents.
So, how does one make sense of this statistical jumble? First, it is obvious that, on average, a college education carries real financial benefits. On average, college and university graduates do significantly better than nongraduates. Second, it is equally obvious that the field of study matters. The average income and career earnings of medical doctors greatly exceed those of film studies graduates, and electrical engineers make more money than wildlife biologists. Third, many of the career achievements are associated with the personal characteristics of the graduates. Before a single day at college, university students have set themselves apart from their high school classmates by being, on average, smarter, harder-working, more dependable, adaptable, and determined, as well as being significantly wealthier (in terms of family income). But heavy-duty mechanics and oil drillers can make more money than film studies graduates too.
What hangs over all of the averages and statistics is that they do not predict the outcomes for individual students. A mediocre high school graduate, attending a fourth-tier college, can soar to the top and become fabulously successful. A class valedictorian, accepted at all the top-five universities she applied to, can run into an intellectual brick wall during her first year at Harvard and skulk home in abject failure. An engineering graduate, entering the job market in the economic doldrums, can end up waiting on tables, just as a psychology student could turn into a world-class journalist and succeed magnificently. Students and parents plan for post-secondary education based on averages and stories of great successes, believing that each young woman or man can or will be the one who will achieve phenomenal results. Such is the naïveté of our age that people equate averages with individual outcomes, a risky venture at the best of times—and these are not the best of times.
Anecdotes do not pay the bills. College websites often have examples of Arts and Science graduates who went on to do great things. (See Yale’s, for example.[13] ) These stories—and some are truly inspirational—do not tell you what happens to an incoming high school graduate. The incoming student may be the next Steve Jobs, drop out quickly, and become a world-changing billionaire. He may be the next Malcolm Gladwell and become a truly impressive writer. She may follow in the footsteps of Oprah Winfrey (who did not quite finish her degree at Tennessee State University). But these are real longshots, offered up as part of the “You can be anything you want to be” mantra that dominates modern parenting in North America. While the individual stories are impressive—Kim Coates of raunchy Sons of Anarchy fame did graduate in drama from the University of Saskatchewan—but that in no way means that all USask drama graduates will follow his path from the Canadian prairie to Hollywood.
Nor, at the same time, do average incomes of university graduates tell incoming students what their employment and career outcomes will be, in large measure because all the statistics are backward-looking. Basing plans for an eighteen-year-old’s future today on the basis of the career experiences of university graduates in the 1980s or even the 1990s is suspect at best. After all, the fundamental economic uncertainties attached to globalization and technological change have made predicting the future a mug’s game.
The Dream Factories live on. There are thousands of stories each year of young people, including many from disadvantaged backgrounds, who make their way through university and launch themselves into wonderful jobs and enviable lifestyles. Modern society is populated by doctors, nurses, economists, university professors, accountants, financial officers, engineers, computer scientists, microbiologists, and many others who could not do their jobs without a high-quality advanced education, often requiring
