Archives for February 2014

What You Need to Know About Careers and Education

Learn Prosper is real. Two out of three jobs available today require some form of learning credential. There are millions of job opportunities every month. The overwhelming majority of those opportunities require that you have education credentials to even be considered. The BUZZ Today has the data. The analysis is in the body of this post.

Buzz TodaySource: US Bureau of Labor Statistics There were 4.0 million job openings in December 2013 and there were 4.4 million hires in December 2013. This makes a total of 8.4 million opportunities to find a new job or career in one 30 day period at the end of 2013.

The argument is over education in the future. There is a lot of debate about whether the forecasts for future jobs are real or not. The Lumina Foundation has a big goal: “To increase the proportion of Americans with high-quality degrees and credentials to 60% by the year 2025”. Another forecast of the demand for degree credentials comes from the highly regarded Georgetown University Center for Education and the Workforce which forecasts that the decade growth ending in 2018 will create 47 million new job openings. Of those new jobs, the forecast is for nearly two-thirds of them to require some post-secondary education.

Recently, some have argued that the value of an education is overstated and that forecasts of future labor demand are flawed.  Much of this argument is entangled with the fact that higher education has become too expensive. This fact is true. Higher education in America has become too expensive. But this is a different issue than whether labor markets demand an education.

The BUZZ Today data shows that there are millions of positions available in the labor markets today – 8.4 million opportunities last December alone to be precise. The jobs are there. What you need to know is what it takes to qualify. Here additional information is valuable.

The massive job posting service Monster.com has studied the mix of current job postings on their web site. What they found is that 60% of those postings required a bachelor degree or above. This is data on the job market today, not some contested forecast about future labor market conditions.

There is one additional fact that you need to know about this issue of career opportunities and education. Companies are receiving massive numbers of resumes for every position. To handle this very real challenge, most large companies use resume screening software to qualify job applicants. If your resume does not match the key words and qualifications of the job posting you will not get an interview. The bottom line is that for the vast majority of the millions of job opportunities you must have a degree credential to even be considered for the position. Without the credentials, it is extremely unlikely that you will be invited to interview.

The main conclusion is that an education vastly increases your chances for a new career. For personal guidance on how to most efficiently obtain that education, go to Your Future is Calling. The book is full of helpful guidance on linking “who you are” to careers and the education path you need to get to the future you desire.

What You Need to Know About the Value of Education

We know a lot about the cost of an education. It costs too much. Here are some other things we know about education. Growing student debt is a student problem that is rapidly becoming a threat to growth of our economy. These issues are getting a lot of attention these days. In contrast, there is little good information about the value of an education today. This post is devoted to the value indicators.  Buzz Today Source: Pew Research Center “The Growing Economic Clout of the College Educated.”College-educated households are the only households whose incomes have grown on a per household basis from 1991 to 2012. There are a number of factors at play in boosting the household incomes of the college educated relative to less-educated households. A primary factor is the better fortunes of the college educated in the labor market. The Georgetown Center on Education and the Workforce finds college graduates earn nearly twice as much as workers with just a high school diploma.

Value Proposition number 1: Education is the key to upward social mobility. Research shows that it is possible to move up in society – with an education. Source:  Federal Reserve Board of San Francisco: A college education can counter the effects of birthright. Only 5% of children born into the bottom quintile (lowest 20%) who don’t graduate from college end up in the top quintile (top 20%). By contrast, 30% of bottom-quintile children who graduate rise to the top quintile (from the bottom 20% to the top 20%). This is clear evidence that a college education is key to the American Dream of having a better life than one’s parents.

Value Proposition number 2: College favorably impacts skills that are important to compete in our modern global economy.  Source: “How College Affects Students: A Third Decade of Research”. All of the following critical skills were found to have statistically significant improvement as a result of a college education. The list includes:

Verbal skills    Quantitative skills     Speaking skills      Written communications     Critical thinking skills      Conceptual complexity.

A survey of employers shows that employers are looking for these very skills.  A report from the American Association of Colleges and Universities  provides data from a January, 2014 survey of 318 corporate executives showed that 93% of those responding agreed that “a demonstrated capacity to think critically, communicate clearly, and solve complex problems” is more important than the skills of the candidate’s undergraduate major.  And 75% of those surveyed said they want more emphasis on critical thinking, problem-solving, written and oral communications and applied knowledge.  And 95% said they want new hires to demonstrate ethical judgement, integrity and the capacity to continue to learn.

Value proposition number 3: College educated households are the only one’s with growing household incomes. All other levels of education have actually declined.

Household Income (2012 dollars)

Education                                  1991              2012             Percent change

Less than high school             $33,959       $32,631                 -4%

High School                                 54,707         52,199                  -5%

Some College, no degree           66,038        63,008                 -5%

Associate’s                                    72,407        68,902                  -5%

Bachelor’s                                     92,289       100,637                +9%

Master’s                                        104,193      114,897               +10%

Professional                                 150,869       180,671               +20%

Doctorate                                      131,365       150,087               +14%

Source:  Pew Trust Research

When you look at the difference between the income for Some College, no degree and the income of a Bachelor’s degree you can see why it is so very important for those with some credits but no degree to complete their college education and graduate.  The difference in income is worth, on average, over $37,000 each year. There are about 38 million Americans in this position.  The irony is that with wise choices, it could cost as little as another $25,000 to complete that degree. Doing that would be of immense value when the value created every year is much more than the total investment.

The cost of an education is pretty clear. The value of an education is less clear. And least clear of all is how to get the value of an education without incurring the high costs that are so widely reported these days. For the latter, see Your Future is Calling for exercises and valuable data.