patrick.net

This is very different from Germany, where manual workers get good training and can make a decent living.

Architects have really lousy employment numbers. Their methodology may have weighed it, but not enough or they looked at "employment by major" rather than "employment in the field they majored in". In other words, an Architectual degree holder working as an assnt manager in a hardware store != employed as an Architect I.

and a 2015 Georgetown Study had architecture majors with a higher unemployment rate than High School Diploma holders :
https://cew.georgetown.edu/wp-content/uploads/HardTimes2015-Report.pdf

I hear the best degrees are in Forestry, Parks & Rec, etc. because these physically intensive, mostly State and Fed jobs are experiencing high rates of retirees as the boomers who took these jobs qualify for retirement and are no longer physically able to do them.

rando says

This is very different from Germany, where manual workers get very good training and can make a decent living.

They also steer kids away from jobless industries. We really need to require State Universities to restrict majors by projected employment, esp. if we are going to be lavish with loans (which does nothing for tuition control).

Of course, State Universities would hate that, because their money-making "BA in Film Studies" and absolute cash cow "PhD in Film Studies and Modern Media" programs suck up the dough. We have a serious problem with flippant degree oversupply.

I also don't understand why we need so many "Blank Studies" when Sociology, Anthropology, and History encompasses those just fine and they should not be available as Bachelor's degrees. Why would you study one narrow group of people before you've gotten a rough education in all people? That is, how can you study Women, until you have a bachelor's in history or sociology or both?

More importantly than anything, we need to return to dispassionate standards for lectures, and insist Blank Studies majors - only available as a MA after a BA in related fields - take regular, non-specialty science courses including Biology and Neuroscience and maybe Physical Anthropology.

Lashkar_i_Trumpi says

We really need to require State Universities to restrict majors by projected employment, esp. if we are going to be lavish with loans (which does nothing for tuition control).

This is a good argument for making university tuition be fixed at a fraction of their students' future earnings. Say 7% of earnings for the first 10 years after graduation.

rando says

This is a good argument for making university tuition be fixed at a fraction of their students' future earnings. Say 7% of earnings for the first 10 years after graduation.

Or, it can be what Germany is doing.