Michigan Education Mar. 2014 | Page 5

HOw Degrees Factor INto The Job Market

By: Jeffery Bencher

Obviously college degrees are of a great deal of importance to us as a nation here in 2014. It has been a piece of a tremendous change attained by the everyday teenage American and is almost expected in most competitive job markets; this was not always the case. Skipping back 200 years ago few Americans (let alone Michiganders) completed college. College degrees were not of any importance when searching for a job. In fact, Americans at the time were not even completing nor attending high school, it is said that only one in every fifty young Americans attended college after graduating from high school (Wattenberg,Caplow and Hicks 52). Lets forget college, high school degrees were not of any requirements until the 20th century. In the 19th century, men mostly dominated college. Degrees were not really considered, but mostly used as a tool to teach rural farmers ways to construct sophisticated occupations. Not only that, in todays world, college degrees are a way to upgrades ones social status. A lot of the times in the past, colleges aimed to register wealthy or popular students rather than your everyday genius (Wattenberg,Caplow and Hicks 101). Now those few who did attend high school and graduated, were probably women.

As mentioned by John Dewey, a leading educational theorist at the time, woman accepted more than sixty percent of the diplomas issued in the early 1900’s (Dewey 73). This fact may or may not be altered because of the rush for men to enter the workforce but it is a fact nonetheless. Years ago school just was not what it is made out to be today, which is not a bad thing. But that was then and this is now, the job markets were not that flooded and the standard that every young person needs to obtain a degree to really compete in the market was not such a worldwide standard. That degree is the difference between (as bad as it sounds) “making it” and not. College is just now becoming recognized as a great deal of importance, and for good reason, but what did it mean for the everyday American growing up in early day Michigan?

Like previously mentioned, women made up more than half of the student body. Something to keep in mind though is the fact that post-secondary education was primarily maintained by men. This is significant because of the amount of high school degrees given to women at the time but not so much because what high end job would hire a women with a degree…or just a women in general? Women’s equality was on the way but it was not until around 1980 that women and men who graduated college reached the same height (Wattenberg, Caplow and Hicks 54). So women had a bit of waiting to do. From the perspectives of the people at the time school was more of a privilege than a necessity. More and more times it would be children form the wealthy or “better off” that would be attending school. Another factor you have to put into consideration is if you lived 20 miles from the nearest school chances were that you did not go to school. That is just how things were, get a job and start working. Men went to work and the women looked after the family, that is the way things were.

The effect of that was really felt by America as a whole, as a society. Kind of makes one think how it took all the way till the 21st century to bring the importance of college to spotlight. And now it is brought to attention on an international level not just in our own backyard, we are now the ones feeling the pressure to make up for what we lacked on in the past. We have fallen behind and now are competing with our degrees on an international level, not just in our own backyard. Although they were not so highly praised in the past does not mean they did not have a meaning to us as a country beyond the surface.

Today, college degrees are of a great deal of importance. You look at any job out there, any opening, and you have 900 resumes to go through. There had to be a way to weed out the field, and college degrees were just one of those ways. You have a fierce job market and you are not only competing with your neighbor but your competing with your neighbors overseas as well (Duncan 91). The meaning of all of this is simple. In todays age if you want that dream career, you want that job to build a family around? You must have some sort of education it is just the way it is. In the eyes of todays generation (myself included) right now, college is make or break. Degrees are just as much as a necessity as obtaining your high school diploma these days, it really adds to the competition of the work force. If you do not succeed in graduating college as harsh as it sounds, you can kiss the your dream career goodbye.