Well, there definitely appears to be creeping credentialism and education inflation, at least in North America (I am less familiar with other jurisdictions).

In the 1950s, fully 40% of students graduated from secondary school. Most people found work regardless, and a small percentage of graduates went on to receive post-secondary education. Everything was rosy.

Within a decade, most well-paying jobs required a minimum education level of a secondary school diploma. The same jobs, but the goal posts had moved. Various changes were made to secondary education to both encourage people to stay in school longer and to make it easier for them to graduate. The student populations boomed, and colleges were built to provide the additional education no longer provided by secondary schools, and to provide technical and skills training no longer provided by employers in the effort to 'improve efficiency' and increase quarterly dividends. Piles of funds were made available for education, because it was clear that a better-educated population was a good thing all around, it had an excellent return on investment.

A couple of decades later and a college diploma or university degree became the standard basic minimum level of education for most jobs. Again, changes were made to the education system. More infrastructure build-out took place because bricks and mortar are great campaign items, but operational funding was reduced because budget cuts are great campaign items.

Come today. The same job that was performed by someone with a minimum grade 10 education in the 1950s requires a university degree. Most jobs that could have been done in the 1950s by a high-school dropout have been moved to a third-world dicatatorship so we can save 15 cents on underwear at Wal-Mart. Real incomes are down and people resent having to pay for someone else's education, since they get no direct benefit. Talk radio and internet choir-preaching sites are popular.

Domestic politics has turned into a race to the bottom to see who can drum up more hate. Stop the crazy spending on elitist education! Make education free for the poor and make the rich pay! Vote for me and I'll buy you ice cream with your own money!!

When I went to university in the 1980s, it cost me a lot of money. I got loans, I worked part-time, I starved, and I wore out my clothes for 6 years (I had duct tape holding my shoes together because i could not afford a new pair). Education is expensive. I still think it's a worthwhile social investment with good returns for all. I'm disappointed that my kids graduated from high school without the chance to learn calculus or linear algebra but they're learning it in university and they have scholarships and bursaries to pay for it that weren't available when I was their age.

Just think about how important subsidizing education is the next time you're sitting in the waiting room at the doctor's office. Ask yourself if the best qualification for someone who is about to perform your DRE is coming from a wealthy family vs. having studied a lot.

In the 1950s, fully 40% of students graduated from secondary school. Most people found work regardless, and a small percentage of graduates went on to receive post-secondary education. Everything was rosy.



Within a decade, most well-paying jobs required a minimum education level of a secondary school diploma. The same jobs, but the goal posts had moved. Various changes were made to secondary education to both encourage people to stay in school longer and to make it easier for them to graduate. The student populations boomed, and colleges were built to provide the additional education no longer provided by secondary schools, and to provide technical and skills training no longer provided by employers in the effort to 'improve efficiency' and increase quarterly dividends. Piles of funds were made available for education, because it was clear that a better-educated population was a good thing all around, it had an excellent return on investment.



A couple of decades later and a college diploma or university degree became the standard basic minimum level of education for most jobs. Again, changes were made to the education system. More infrastructure build-out took place because bricks and mortar are great campaign items, but operational funding was reduced because budget cuts are great campaign items.

I think this is why this is happening. Why do even the most menial of jobs now require a degree? I was walking in the science building in my university and they had a job ad for

an entry level web developer requiring a masters in CS. Really?

...

I was walking in the science building in my university and they had a job ad for an entry level web developer requiring a masters in CS. Really?

It's a growing trend in both the US and Canada were employers will post a job with crazy job requirements.

After some time passes, they go the immigration office and say "we can't find any qualified people to fill this job - we need to import a specialist" .

At that point they import some one who doesn't actually have the original job "requirements", but who is willing to work for $15,000 - $20,000 USD a year .

In the US they are called H1B Visas, and they are being freely abused by companies who want cheap tech labor.

There are far too many people studying degrees that will not improove their prospects in the job market in any way. Of course there is the other argument that job prospects should have nothing to do with your degree and that the reason for studying is purely an Academic persuit.

I think both of those are bad ways of looking at it.

It should be common sense that it's a good idea(tm) to have an educated population simply for the sake of it. Not for jobs specifically, and not for academia specifically, but just because education makes the world better. Can you imagine living in Somalia where they have to use illustrations on street signs because 80% of people can't even read? We've decided that our society would be much worse off if reading was only for the rich, so we ensure everyone has this capability.

A country with educated citizens is more prosperous, more stable, more equal, more healthy, has less crime, than a country with non-educated citizens. There should be no argument that it's in everybody's best interests if everyone is encouraged and given the opportunities to become as educated as they want to.

Education isn't expensive. It is ridiculously expensive in the USA compared to the rest of the world (just like healthcare, justice, etc... notice a common theme...), but that's because you've chosen to make it expensive in order for it to be a worthwhile for-profit venture. The whole argument there has nothing to do with education, and everything to do with liberal-economics only. You don't necessarily want to have a ruined generation, education-for-the-rich, unfathomable crime rates, overflowing prisons, expensive justice, affordable healthcare, etc... It's just that these have implicitly been chosen as the status-quo by the religious insistence on individualism.

Once done, they most likely don't have a job = no money to pay off the debt. Then the banks and organization that gave these loans are left empty handed. I personally think something should be done soon rather than later.

Only if you die. Otherwise they'll just leech off you for life, and you and your debt are still a valuable asset for them. Nothing will be done because doing so is apparently tantamount to soviet communism.

[edit] as for education inflation, it's probably bein diluted at the same rate... Schools used to teach Latin and Greek just so we could learn from the classics, and presidents used to publish long and well reasoned speeches in newspapers expecting to win over the public using logic and to encourage real debate.
Such things sound completely and utterly unbelievable today.

jobs that required a high-school diploma 25 years ago require a bachelor's now

Is that really the case in the US?

Because I haven't really seen it anywhere else. There are certainly more jobs that require a degree now, but those are generally jobs that either didn't exist 25 years ago or weren't that common. I have yet to see anyone require higher qualifications for trade jobs (plumber, electrician, etc) or low skilled work.

Do you have any evidence of this (aside from your mexican fast food anecdote)?

Interesting topic. I am all about learning, and I feel that information should be free to a degree (I used to think it should be free all of the time).

We are living in a time where information is power. Ironic enough for me.

It makes sense that IT is a big field.

Take the news for instance, what would we know or care to know without it?

It comes down to what information is worth paying for, and what information is not worth paying for.

Yet, sometimes information is a lot harder to attain, because it is made harder to attain by systems.

There is a school program running in several counties near me where the students learn from their tablets and computers via some monotonous toned lady speaking to them from a flat screen. That is the state of education to day.

We have so much access to information via the internet at our disposal that experience sorta gets the short end of the stick.

25 years ago, experience was THE thing to have, where men and women learned trades. And I do believe there were more jobs then. Jobs like:

Shoe shiner
Whistle Blower
Grass Picker
Limb gatherer
Wheel turner

"Joe can't think a lick, but he sure can turn a wheel."

I believe experience is still THE thing in SOME companies, but from my personal experience, it seems that society tries to pays back college students first, for the money (not time and hard work) they invested for that degree.