Archives for April 2013

New Shoes

Posted on April 12, 2013 // Leave a Comment

The next series of posts on this blog will look at the three key parts of your degree completion decision:  “who you are”, careers, and universities.      Buzz Today Source:  Your Future is Calling.   The book is a road map for you to earn your degree quickly and efficiently.  It is important that you do the work to find the right fit for you.  Think of your task as if you were shopping for a new pair of shoes.  You have to shop around to find out what is available.  You have to try on the shoes to make sure they don’t hurt your feet.  You have to look at them in the mirror. You have to examine the price tag to see if you can afford them.  The important point is that, in the end only you can tell if those new shoes fit you.  The only difference here is that the new shoes you are shopping for (your degree) you will wear every day for the rest of your life, and if they do not fit, they will not only hurt your feet, they will create pain in every part of your life. 

It is important to begin at the beginning – with “who you are”.  The BUZZ Today talks about why it all needs to start with you.

“Who you are”:  In many ways we are all different.  Our lives and experiences mold us.  What I enjoy may not at all appeal to you.  I like standing in a cold, fast flowing stream and casting a fly over and over again trying to tempt a trout I cannot even see into biting on a glob of thread and feathers only to release the fish once I have landed him in a net.

Most of you would not find this appealing at all.  Some might find it revolting, even barbaric.  But that is exactly the point.  We are all different.  What motivates each of us to do what we do, to be “who we are” is very much about each of us.

When it comes to deciding on a degree, a college, a career you need to start with yourself.  In the end, all of these have to fit you, just as the shoes in the BUZZ Today have to fit you.  No one else can tell you if they fit.  You have to try them on.  To do that you have to have good information.  We will come back to this in posts here over the weeks and months to come.

Filed Under: Adult learning, College degrees, Famous careers, Uncategorized // Tagged: , , , , , , , ,

Associate vs. Bachelor Degrees

Posted on April 9, 2013 // Leave a Comment

Associate Degrees vs Bachelor Degrees

Headline: Community college grads out-earn bachelor’s degree holders.

This is a rather powerful statement.  It is designed to get your attention. The reason it is so powerful is because it reinforces a common journalist theme today that the cost and debt required to earn a bachelor degree are not worth it.  Buzz Today Source: CNN Money:  “I have a buddy who got a four-year bachelor’s degree in accounting who’s making $10 an hour,” Berevan Omer (a recent community college graduate) says. “I’m making two and a-half times more than he is.” Omer, who is 24, is one of many newly minted graduates of community colleges defying history and stereotypes by proving that a bachelor’s degree is not, as widely believed, the only ticket to a middle-class income.

The use of sweeping generalizations often used around this issue of earning a degree of any kind does not contribute to better decision making.   Here we are talking about decision making that directly effects your future.

Let’s look at the BUZZ Today item more closely.  First of all, it is true that some associate degree holders make more money than some bachelor degree holders.  This is true for lots of situations.  Bill Gates does not have a degree of any kind and I have a Ph.D.  Bill Gates makes a heck of a lot more money than I do.  Does this mean that you are more likely to earn more money by not getting a degree?  Absolutely not.

The tricky part of the BUZZ Today article are the words slipped in to reinforce the popular theme that getting a degree is “not worth it”.  The high impact words are: defying history, stereotypes, proving, only and widely believed.  These are words meant to prove sweeping generalizations in support of the conclusion being advanced.   Especially suspect is the combination of the words “widely believed”.

Belief is like beauty.  It is in the eye of the beholder. There is no evidence in the BUZZ Today quote to support the claim that such beliefs are indeed widely held. It is true that these beliefs are being widely reported but this does not mean that they are widely held beyond the belief of the author doing the reporting.  The facts (in contrast to beliefs) are that since 1988, the number of jobs requiring bachelor degrees have grown 82% while the number of jobs requiring associate degrees have grown by 42%.   Jobs for those with only a high school education have actually declined 14%.  More detail on this data is available in the free Introduction to Your Future is Calling. The data also shows that over a lifetime, the average bachelor degree holder earns far more than the average associate degree holder.

In the end, the defensible conclusion is that some associate degree holders earn more than some bachelor degree holders.   The guidance for you here, is that you make your decision about your future based on hard data, sound reasoning and what fits “who you are”.  Stay away from the sensational sweeping generalizations based on beliefs.  To get important facts you might want to read Your Future is Calling.

Filed Under: Adult learning, Career, College degrees, Income, Money, Uncategorized // Tagged: , , , , , ,

Why Doing Your Homework Is So Important

Posted on April 7, 2013 // Leave a Comment

In earlier blog posts we looked at why the traditional quality measures of high price and tight admissions selectivity provides little helpful information for adult learners making university and career decisions.  The example was the grand daddy of all high quality American Universities, Harvard University.

But even with the detailed look at what makes Harvard great, you are still left with little practical information about how to select a career and a university.  These decisions are both explored in detail in my book, Your Future is Calling.  In BUZZ Today we see a very practical case study for someone attending a school other than Harvard.   Buzz TodaySource: Hechinger Report     Joyce English was about to start studying toward an associate degree she hoped would lead to a job as a consultant to healthcare companies around Tacoma, Wash., where she lives. Then she discovered a database. English changed her mind and is now majoring in what she learned is the more lucrative field of business management at Pierce College.

The point of our discussion in this blog is that there is good information to help you select both a career and a college.  That information is more detailed and more specific to your decisions than the traditional data available in popular sources.

The Buzz Today source has specific information available in a study called “New Pressure on Colleges to Disclose Grad’s Earnings”.  Here are a few facts.

New data is available about career and college decisions.  I talk about them in Your Future is Calling.  (Note: Very detailed information about Pierce College for example, is available in Chapter 9 of the book titled: “How to Select the Right School”).   New data is becoming available.

In Virginia, graduates of four-year nursing programs earn more than twice as much as liberal-arts majors, on average, and graduates of the University of Richmond make almost 72 percent more than graduates of Hollins University. In Tennessee, majors in health professions make two and a half times what philosophy and religious-studies majors make, and graduates of the University of Memphis earn 13 percent more than graduates of the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga.

The point of this discussion is not to direct you to Virginia or Tennessee or even to a specific college or university.  The point of this discussion is to make the point that it does matter what you study and where you go to school. You need good information to make good choices.

While income is not the only thing to consider, it is an important consideration for over 90% of those surveyed.  In the end, your biggest challenge is to invest in education and a career that fits “who you are” but income is clearly a factor in those decisions.  The take away is to choose wisely based on solid information.

Filed Under: Adult learning, College degrees, Elite universities, Price, Quality // Tagged: , , , ,

Selecting a College or University – Part IV

Posted on April 2, 2013 // Leave a Comment

Selectivity

In an earlier post we looked at higher education quality in terms of price and selectivity.  That blog focused on price in particular.  Here we are taking a critical look at the second quality parameter – selectivity.  We return to the crème de crème of American higher education, Harvard University.  Buzz TodaySource:  The Harvard Crimson – An all time low 5.9 percent of applicants received offers to join Harvard’s class of 2016.  This marks the seventh consecutive year that Harvard’s admission rate has fallen (become more selective). 

We can see in the BUZZ Today that Harvard is proud of being highly selective. The university broadcasts its selectivity relative to its highly selective competitors like Yale and Princeton.  But the question is: “what does this high selectivity mean for the returning adult learner?”  Unfortunately, those of us who are mere mortals will never have the opportunity to go to Harvard.  What is the average adult learner to do?

Let me first provide some comfort when it comes to selectivity of admissions.  The fact is, that the selectivity is much more about the students attending the university than it is about the university itself.  To this you might say: “but hold on, these are some of the very smartest kids in the land!” To this I reply – True.  But to help you make your selection decision we need to know what this means for the highly selective university and more importantly, what this means for you.

First the University:  By having the option to make sure that those entering Harvard are the best of the best, Harvard University vastly increases the likelihood of those getting a degree from Harvard are the most successful graduates.  Salaries and public acclaim verify that success.

But that is not the entire story.  There is little research that definitively shows that the relative success of Harvard University graduates are the result of what they learned at school (relative to what is learned at other universities).  It is much more likely that the success is the result of the quality of the students entering Harvard.  As a result, we should not be surprised that these students remained among the best and brightest once they graduated from Harvard.

For the more average Joe or Jane, Harvard selectivity helps little in the decision about quality and what university to attend.  For more details see:   Your Future is Calling.

Filed Under: Adult learning, College degrees, Elite universities, Quality // Tagged: , , , , ,
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