The students of the United States have been on a journey of exploration for a good many years now. The question might be asked: What is it they are exploring?
In many cases it seems their discovery has been little more than a significant amount of debt brought on by the pursuit of a degree that has dubious earning potential.
Uh oh. That wasn’t supposed to happen.
When I reflect back to those times of making big decisions about going to college, or not going to college, and what sort of a career I might have, I can recall being pretty deeply mired in the quicksand of ignorance.
And I went to what was considered a darned good high school with some sharp kids. Candace Bushnell was in my graduating class. She went on to write the content that became “Sex in the City.” Laura Ingraham did well with Fox News, too. She was in my little sister’s class. There are thousands of other successful folks you’ve probably never heard of in my classes too. Doctors and lawyers, gas station attendants and electricians, all sprung from the halls of that fine institution to do their best in the world.
While many of my peer group went on to college, many others did not. I took four years off to travel and be an idiot before enrolling at Manchester Community College in central Connecticut to pursue an education in communications. I never did graduate, leaving school when my band began doing well.
When balancing the relative merits of being a fledgling rock star against the traditional educational route, it wasn’t all that tough a choice, really.
In the long run I’ve done reasonably well. I never got the degree, but the band and I did produce an LP that sold modestly. We played live for years and had one heck of a good time.
I have published something in print every week for more than 30 years, along with a handful of fictional works.
I’ve been privileged to participate in a National Geographic biopic about Charles Lindbergh, stood on the stage at Radio City Music Hall, met a number of my boyhood idols, and somewhere in there learned a thing or two about aviation in its various forms.
I have no complaints. I do have questions, however.
It’s been my belief for many, many years that education should be a lifelong pursuit.
Unlike in prior generations when technology remained relatively static for 100 years or more at a time, technology, and the societal norms that result from it, have changed dramatically — and frequently — in modern times.
When my great-grandfather was born in 1857, the tech he found in and around his house was not significantly different from the tech at George Washington’s farm 100 years earlier. When I was born 100 years later, we had electricity, running water, telephones, radio, airplanes, and nuclear power plants. Life is changing for the modern human and that rate of change is only speeding up and becoming more complex.
My great-grandfather knew how every piece of equipment in his house worked and in many cases he could repair or replace them himself. Unless you’re a very unusual individual you probably don’t know much about how the major appliances in your kitchen work, let alone your car, computer, phone, or satellite service.
Education is the key to success. There’s no doubt about it. But, does that mean a college degree is an essential component of that success? Does the lack of a B.A., or a B.S., or an MBA behind our name mean we’ll live in a state of lesser potential forevermore?
Poppycock, I say. Even in the rapidly advancing industry of aviation, a college degree does not guarantee success any more than the lack of one relegates us to lower class status.
While I am admittedly no more than a high school graduate, I hold five FAA certificates, which makes up for the lack of a degree, I think. And the path I took is as valid today as it ever was. Maybe more so.
When I got into aviation as a profession, none of the major airlines were all that excited about hiring a pilot who didn’t have a sheepskin hanging on their wall. Now, that’s not so much of a requirement as it is a desirable trait.
Less well known is that airlines and other organizations that might hire us don’t care a whole lot about what field of study that degree was focused on. Pilot Science? Okay. Accounting, psychology, political science, public affairs, 18th Century English Literature? All good. And yes, I actually do know a pilot who majored in 18th Century English Literature.
I also am fortunate enough to know or somehow find myself connected to a considerable number of professional pilots, some employed by major airlines, who like me, did not matriculate at an accredited university or college. Rather, we focused on our education, our certifications, our skill sets, and our ability to aim high with the intention of meeting and beating our goals over time.
I have a sibling with an Esq after her name. She went to college. I have another sibling whose name is followed by the letters DVM. He’s a veterinarian. He went to college, too.
Officially, my name has no letters that follow it — unless you use the FAA methodology that includes Comm ASEL, ASES, AMEL, CFI, CFII, MEI, Mechanic, and a few other little bits here and there about instrument flight, remote aircraft, and ground instruction.
But you can just call me Jamie. My mom does. Why not you, too?
So the long and the short of it seems to be do you need an education? Yes. Do you need a degree? Maybe. It all depends on your goals, the requirements necessary to meet those goals, and your willingness to either fit in or blaze your own trail.
Conduct yourself accordingly. In the long run, you’ll be glad you did. Either way, you can do this.
Degrees May not be required for a successful career in aviation, but one certainly is a fallback option in case those aviation career goals become interrupted, or worse, terminated due to the many potential issues that can and do arise. Medical disqualification, training issues, furloughs, or (heaven forbid) certification actions can (and have) cut short many a promising aviation career. In the course of my aviation career, I knew of several individuals to whom this happened. I consider myself fortunate to have made it to retirement without having to use that fallback option, but many aren’t so lucky. Having a usable degree can make the transition easier without having to return to school later in life.
OMG … I’m agreeing with Jamie … 🙂
I spent 21 years in the USAF, most of ’em involved with flight test at Edwards AFB. I had all my civil ratings via aero clubs but lacked a degree so I couldn’t become a USAF pilot. By the time I did get a degree, I was too old (27.5). I’da promised my left arm to fly but that wasn’t an option. Making it worse, on the occasions I flew in fighters, I was complimented for my ability to fly ’em. It was always my position that the USAF should have an alternate path to becoming a pilot for ‘late bloomers’ like me. One such idea I had was to reinstitute the Warrant Officer rank structure. Get an Associates degree — possibly via the Community College of the USAF — have a technical or skilled background, apply and meet a board and you’d possibly be selected for pilot training with the caveat that you’d have to get a degree in order to later transition to commissioned officer IF you wanted it. The USAF is now making drone pilots out of enlisted folks who were hand selected; this allows rated officers to go back to flying for real. There are about 100 of them. So “flying sergeants” are already a reality. Chuck Yeager started out that way!
NOW, I just read where the USAF IS considering reinstitution of the Warrant Officer ranks … not only for pilots but for other highly skilled or technical fields. I hope it happens. THAT is the answer to the pilot shortage IMHO. Ability, skills, training and personal druthers are highly under valued; formal education does show a willingness to play another’s ‘game’ and finish but the former are just as important.
HR prerequisite Creep. The over abundance of degreed out of work job applicants . Competing with / for ,the available historically high school graduate and below level jobs.. That are commanding the same wage/pay rate.
And now we have the HR person, who most likely has only minimal, if any, understanding of the actual job’s requirements.. Well, obviously, the applicant ,with the degree , will do a better job and suddenly the position is degree required.. Often, the lack of practical experience is overlooked….
The last paragraph of your article was the most important in my mind. The idea that the value of a formal education leading to a degree depends on your goals is central to the answer. I became fascinated with nuclear power as a kid (yeah, I was an odd duck). There was no way to pick up skills like calculating mass defect and solving inhour equations or running 6 factor theorems without the patient guidance of a professor. Even if I had been smart enough to pick up those skills just from books, I couldn’t have landed my first job without the sheepskin. It took me 5 years to get through a 4 year program in nuclear engineering, but I went to a state school that received enough federal and state funding that paying for tuition was relatively easy without taking out massive loans. The reason I took 5 years to complete the program is because there was no social life in the halls of nuclear engineering, so I minored in theater arts. I had a blast playing with theater majors and even got some good roles in school plays that further helped my social life. It was a good 5 years! It I had decided to follow a career in theater, I probably could have done that without a degree. I might even have had some success. I’ll never know because I went to work as a nuclear engineer and had a great career. That career provided enough discretionary income to let me pay for training leading to a pilots license with a nice collection of ratings. I’ve even owned several planes over the years. I’m glad Jamie found a successful career path without a degree, but I doubt his sibling that chose veterinary medicine could have pursued their desired career path without several sheepskins.. Pursuing a degree without a goal in mind is pretty silly and frightfully expensive these days, but a degree leading to a specific goal may actually be necessary, not just something expensive to pursue.
Education is now primarily a business devoted to its own perpetuation, students are considered a necessary nuisance because they pay the bills – often going very deep into long-term debt to do so.
They also don’t seem to be particularly concerned if their students graduate or not. When I sat through a college orientation, they actually boasted that half of the students in that room would not graduate. Would you go to a doctor who boasted that half their patients died? How about an airline which boasted half their flights would crash? Oh yeah, they got paid in advance, if “you didn’t make it, you are not worthy”, they kept the money anyway.
I also got the distinct impression that some of the teachers/instructors/lecturers weren’t really saying anything and hadn’t for the last hour or two.
Some years later, I was on the other side of the desk. “Here’s your material for this class, it has a three hour time slot.” “But there’s only 15 minutes of material here.” “Well, make it fit.” Then it was my turn to not really say anything for the last hour or two.
The problem isn’t education or learning, the problem is in the delivery mechanism. The problem is in the insularity, parochialism and dogged determination to resist change inherent in education-as-a-business.
Another issue is the insistence on hiring people with degrees. That way, if something goes sour, the supervisor (or the lawyers) can say “They had a degree so they were supposed to know what they were doing”, which lets the supervisors avoid blame. That’s infinitely preferable to being blamed for hiring a non-degreed, hence “unqualified” person because the supervisor is definitely going to be blamed for that.
The first step in solving a problem is recognizing that we have one. We’re starting to do that at last.
Excellent article and comments above. I’m a degreed electrical engineer with a strong business minor, both of which have defined my career(s) throughout the decades. In earlier times as a hiring manager, the degree requirement for even menial entry-level jobs served as a limit valve cutting down on an ocean of irrelevant resumes, plus showing that the applicants showed diligence and self-investment in their future careers. Even today, many job seekers write a general resume (often inflated) and submit them for any advertised job — throwing spaghetti against the wall and hoping it sticks somewhere. Separating the wheat from the chaff and interviewing are a lot harder than those who are not hiring managers could imagine.
Unfortunately, the earlier rule of ‘degree required’ eliminated many very-well qualified applicants for jobs I was responsible for in electronics manufacturing and sales. My hobby, ham radio, involves many people who are instinctive tinkerers and builders of equipment from manuals from scrounge parts and enjoy seeing them come to life. Some of those folks would have been much, much more valuable on our engineering design teams and out on the factory floor than somebody with a degree and low grades, but alas, I couldn’t hire them.
Seems the tide has turned and I’m reading articles that companies large and small are doing away with the degree requirements from anyone from costodian up just to get hired, and good results follow in many cases. That’s a big step in the right direction.
I’m involved in youth programs at church, especially boys interested in audio-video production and pretty good amateur musicians, mechanics, electricians, etc. Unless one of them expresses a calling to be a professional, I universally advise them to become qualified certified skilled tradespersons (yes, girls too) because it’s a rare occasion I ever see one of them out of work. Most of the carpenters, electricians, plumbers, masons, et.al. I know are full-time employed with a pickup truck (sometimes a huge one), wife, kids, and a nice house and steaks on the grille. They’re on the job at 7, quit at 4, have a few brews with their buddies before heading back to home & hearth. If I had to do it all over again, I might have chosen a skilled trade.
The root cause of all this is that humanity is creating more humanity than there are jobs. Since the ‘machine age’ centuraries ago, and more recently with the computer, and now AI, human labor whether on an accountant’s spreadsheet or tightening and soldering on an assembly line making post-WWII TV sets, companies have succeeded in automating humans out of the expense ledger for greater stability and profitability. Robots don’t strike and demand more and more and more. The recent uprise of union activity may give immediate improvements to wages and working conditions, but unfortunately, will result in more automation, more AI, and more layoffs. It’s a pendulum swing. We reap what we sow.
One man’s opinion. Regards/J
The better question is whether the degree has value. For instance, does it yield a positive ROI within, say, five years, a reasonable length of time for an investment of this nature? Clearly if people are paying down college loans for 5/10/15 years, the ROI is probably negative. Consider that nearly 80% of all careers in Switzerland begin with a 3-4 year paid apprenticeship, starting at around age 16. Tat country has nearly zero youth unemployment, very low crime rates, and the population is among the healthiest and happiest in the world. Switzerland has many world-leading industrial companies as a result of their excellent apprenticeships, for instance Pilatus. Apprentices earn money, the education is essentially free, and they have a guaranteed job at the end at the same place they learned their career. Both our sons apprenticed as A&Ps in North Carolina after high school and now build jet engines for GE Aerospace in Durham, NC. No college needed, no debt, either. I have two engineering degrees in mechanical and aerospace engineering, worked my way through college, no loans required. In my last undergraduate year (1979, Auburn), a full year of tuition and fees was a whopping $660. A lot of money for me, but I managed to find work and pay it myself. If I had to do it all over? I would have taken that job as a crop duster apprentice offered at age 17 in Decatur, AL, and would probably be a lot better off today. No regrets, but a lot wiser on such things. See NCTAP.org for an example of how the Swiss apprenticeship system is working well here in North Carolina.
College is a grossly over-rated and expensive endevour. A waste of time for any not pursuing a licensed profession and an attraction away from training in the diminishing, but highly necessary trades.
My grandfather did not go to college but he bought the company he worked for in 1950, and was very successful throughout his life in business. His son, my father went to college for one semester then came home and went to work for his father at his father’s company. My father learned to fly in 1946. He was the barnstormer of the family. I went to college then went to work or my grandfather and father in the family business. I got my private pilot’s license in high school. I went on to get the commercial, instrument, CFI, CFII and seaplane rating. I was the accomplished GA pilot in the family. My son went to college because that is what’s required these days to become an airline pilot. My son majored in aviation, then went on to fly professionally for an airline. Three generations of pilots in our family, each generation raising the bar. Between my grandfather, father and myself in the family business, two out of the three did not have a college education but that didn’t hold them back. They were both very successful individuals. We were the father, son, and Holy Ghost.