Attention Economy


Tuesday, February 14, 2023

College is Not the Only Path to Career Success

High-paying jobs that don't need a college degree? Thousands of them sit empty
https://www.npr.org/2023/02/14/1155405249/high-paying-jobs-that-dont-need-a-college-degree-thousands-of-them-are-sitting-e
"Like most other American high school students, Garret Morgan had it drummed into him constantly: Go to college. Get a bachelor's degree.
"All through my life it was, 'If you don't go to college you're going to end up on the streets,' " Morgan said back in 2018. "Everybody's so gung-ho about going to college."
So he tried it for a while. Then he quit and started training as an ironworker, which is what he was doing on a weekday morning in a nondescript high-ceilinged building with a concrete floor in an industrial park near the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport.
Morgan and several other men and women were dressed in work boots and hard hats, clipped to safety harnesses with heavy wrenches hanging from their belts. They were being timed as they wrestled 600-pound I-beams into place.
Back then, the demand for ironworkers was rising – and it still is: the sector is growing 4% annually, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Ironworkers earn, on average, $27.48 per hour, or $57,160 per year. Morgan was already working on a job site when he wasn't at the Pacific Northwest Ironworkers shop. At 20, he was earning $28.36 an hour, plus benefits".

Five charts document rise in college going and degrees but there could be trouble ahead
https://hechingerreport.org/proof-points-new-higher-ed-data-by-race-and-ethnicity/

My take: Is the US higher education bubble about to burst?
https://thehill.com/opinion/education/590971-will-the-us-higher-education-bubble-finally-burst