College Education Overrated : Rubio Advocates for Vocational Study

As anyone that is awake and attended a college or university knows, many students that are attending classes, and many that aren't, do not belong there. They do not have the focus or willingness to learn, mimicking what they did in high school. Many, of course, are not capable of higher learning.

I've written on many occasion on my own experiences while attending a university, it was incredible the number is kids that had no idea what they were doing there, and what they want to do to survive when the get out of school.

Rubio is right.

Welders Do Not Earn More Than Philosophers, But Rubio Has a Point
By Pam Villarreal

During last night’s debate, Senator Marco Rubio applied economic principles to numerous subjects including the public school system, higher education and the job market.  In explaining his opposition to free college tuition – which has been championed by Hillary Clinton and Bernier Sanders – Sen. Rubio advocated for increasing vocational training.

He stated, “For the life of me, I don’t know why we have stigmatized vocational education. Welders make more money than philosophers!” Of course, several leftwing media outlets pounced on him for his assertion. In deference to them, Rubio’s statement was not correct regarding salaries.  Politico noted:

“Philosophers actually earn quite a bit more than welders … Philosophy teachers and professors earned a mean wage of $71,350 in 2014, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That’s far more than the mean wage for welders and workers in similar professions. They earn a mean wage of $40,040.”

But if philosophers earn more than welders, as critics of Sen. Rubio’s comment assert, shouldn’t the U.S. education policy continue to encourage high school students to pursue a four-year degree?  It depends.

There are 2,968 four-year, degree-granting colleges in the United States that awarded 1.8 million Bachelor’s degrees in the 2012-2013 school year, an increase of 36 percent over the last 10 years.  Specifically, 12,793 degrees in philosophy and religious studies were conferred to graduates in 2012-2013.  

But philosophy degrees do not necessarily translate into good-paying teaching jobs.  Last year, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York released a report on the mismatch of college graduates and jobs related to their degrees.  They found that 52 percent of liberal arts majors were in jobs that did not even require a college degree.  Furthermore, the Center on Education and the Workforce at Georgetown University found that the after the Great Recession, the unemployment rate for Bachelor’s degree holders was 8.9 percent, but the rate for non-technical majors was generally higher than for those with other majors.

On top of that, today’s typical graduate carries a student loan balance of $23,186.
Setting aside salaries, I suspect what Rubio really meant was job opportunities for welders versus philosophers. He echoed a concern that I wrote about a couple of years ago:  college may be overrated. So why did Sen. Rubio promote welders and, by association, other vocational fields? These are the areas predicted to have some of the fastest job growth in the coming years. Blue-collar labor, specifically skilled tradesmen, restaurant and hotel staff, laborers, and drivers are four of the top 10 most difficult jobs to fill, and none of them require a four-year degree.

For the thousands of soon-to-be high school graduates, and for all those college students preparing for a future career, college may not be a solution.  The variety of vocational training courses with lower costs and shorter time commitments than the traditional four-year university are astounding.  If you are considering philosophy as a career, you may just want to look into welding first!