Monday, February 15, 2010

Are traditional bachelor degrees going to be worthless?

So I graduated this past December with a double-BA in communications and political science. I started undergrad in September 2006 with communications as my major because my sisters were doing it and I really had no idea what else to do. At that point I had not really discovered the loves I hold now: if I had, I would've likely double-majored in economics and some speciality in the music department.

I've been out of school for nearly two months and the job market is bleak beyond belief. With Obama's insane hyper-Keynesian stimilus and public-works black magic in full swing and seeing the whole trendy push of high schoolers towards "having to go to college" as a goal rather than as something that MAY or may not be right for them, it's highly likely bachelors degrees are gonna be so worthless soon it's not even funny.

It's because of supply-and-demand: back in the day college was not as pushed as a requisite: it was treated the way it should be, as something that MAY be right at a certain time, may be right at a later time, or may not be right at all. (Same goes with high school, and public schools make the opportunities for a switch to the work force practically impossible for those under 16 or 17, but that's another issue entirely). This was also before insane subsidization that has led to exploding college costs. It shouldn't surprise anyone at the government's extreme talent of not only sending college costs through the roof, but making the degrees worthless in the process, not unlike fiat money inflation.

Now with a supply-and-demand analysis, one might quip that the shrinking of private sector jobs (assuming, for ease of argument, that public jobs are not in the question) degrees will be worth more because even those there are more and more bachelors degrees floating around, jobs are scarce. This would be true if it weren't for the fact that the job market for those careers the degrees prepared students for were actually going to EXIST. Right now, those sections of the economy -- finance, banking, etc -- are shrinking left and right at the same time the public sector's job section is billowing.

Which leads me to a fantastic article (http://mises.org/daily/4099) by Doug French at mises.org, where he cites author Daniel Pink's relevant research in the job prospects of "left-brained" vs. "right-brained"-type jobs (left = more logical, right = more artistic). Pink suggests, I think pretty obviously correctly, that the right-brainers will dominate the job market of the 21st century. That means the art majors, the music majors, the musicians and artists WITHOUT degrees, etc. Those degrees will be more and more valuable as the cancer of Keynesian stimulus continues pervading the system and destroying more and more jobs of the traditional kind.

And this is reason to rejoice for me, as I am a musician and it's my dream to make a living that way. Times ahead are dark, but for artists there should be a silver lining.

2 comments:

  1. I'm confused by the end of your post -- are you saying people with bachelor's degrees in the arts will not have as much success as those without degrees?

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  2. No I'm saying I think they'll have more, because I think we're in for a far worse downturn in the near future and there will be more of a market for arts/entertainment, plus firms will be looking towards more creative solutions for slackening profits. Plus those degrees will be more attractive because BAs in stuff like accounting and finance may very well be worthless.

    Check out this article to see where I'm coming from: https://mises.org/daily/4099

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