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By Mike Collings, Author, Saving American Manufacturing

“Whether it is high school, community college or a 4- year college, the emphasis needs to be on weaving more skill sets into education curriculums to provide a shot at better paying jobs.”

        For the last 20 years the government mantra has been, “Get a college education and you will get ahead.”

        Shop classes that used to be in every grade school and high school were replaced by computer labs to prepare the “new knowledge workers” for the future.

       But the big question is – will kids coming out of high school or college have the basic skills to get a job? 

        In manufacturing we have gone from a time when there were plenty of jobs that only required a high school degree and some on-the-job training, to an era of automation and sophistication requiring a variety of high skill sets. In the service industries the people making the good wages are the people with professional degrees or very specialized training.

        As the economy has changed to one that requires higher skills, more technical knowledge and specialized training, the education system has not changed very much.

“I want to make a case that a general degree from a 4-year college is often no better then a high school degree in terms of getting a job.” 

There were 1,485,252 degrees awarded in 2005/06. When I added up the various degree categories, I found that 50-60 percent (890,000) of the degrees were in the general category, and did not include enough specific skills to be termed a professional degree that could command a well paid job. I include business degrees in the general category because I don’t think they offer enough practical skills to get a good job in business.

            My bias comes from not only interviewing candidates with this degree but from talking to hundreds of waiters and waitresses in my travels who have business degrees and can’t seem to find a good job.

             A good example is Graham McConnell, who graduated from a private college in 2006 with a major in business. His first job out of college was making $7.50 an hour at Hollywood Video until he finally was hired by a clockmaker as an internet marketing assistant for $31,000 per year. His current debt load is $24,000. (Willamette Week Fleeced, May 28, 2008)

              Josh Seeds has a Masters degree in Environmental Science from Washington State University and is 31 years old. After 3 low paying jobs, he was hired by the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality as a water quality analyst at $45,000 per year. His debt to pay off is $111,000, which he doesn’t expect to pay until 2043. By the time he pays off his student loans he expects to be 67 and eligible for Medicare and Social Security. (Willamette Week Fleeced, May 28, 2008)

         The problem of finding a family wage job is not limited to general college degree students:

• For the 2007/08 year there were over 3.3 million high school graduates.
• Another 25 percent either dropped out of high school or didn’t graduate on time.
• In 2005/06 approximately 713,066 students graduated from community colleges. Of this group 314,000 had technical/professional degrees.
• In 2005/06 over 1.4 million students graduated with Bachelors degrees from a 4- year college. Of this group 40 percent had professional or technical degrees. 60 percent were academic or general degrees.

             So the big question is; what will the dropouts, high school graduates and the general degree holders do to find a good paying job in the changing economy?

              In the last 35 years the art of working with your hands has been downplayed and replaced by the “go to college at any cost” movement. In contrary, Dusty Heming, a 35-year-old electrician in Portland says he earns $34 per hour working on renewable energy projects.

              Electricians, plumbers, pipefitters, masons, maintenance technicians, machinists and fabricators who go through apprentice programs can make more then $30 per hour, and the demand for these types of workers will exceed supply by 5 percent in 2012.

              I think this makes a strong case for bringing back shop classes, particularly for those who learn by doing and not through books. The 2-year vocational associates degree is the most preferred education by most manufacturers. However, community colleges need to create more industry-specific programs and state legislatures have to change funding formulas that limit the number of technical and vocational degrees.

              In manufacturing there is already a shortage of skilled workers and it will get worse as 10 million baby boomer employees retire by 2020. The training programs for manufacturing skilled workers are simply not adequate to train 10 million workers.

              Colleges need to look at their general degree categories and enhance them in providing a better chance at a higher paying job. They should also consider giving students’ credit for taking technical elective courses, even if they are taught in a different institution or community college.

              I think it would also help to increase the cost of general classes and lower the cost of technical classes. The big dark secret is that transitioning to a service economy will create jobs, but not at a high enough level of pay.

              On the first page of The Work Of Nations, Robert Reich says, “Each nation’s political task will be to cope with the centrifugal forces of the global economy which tear at the ties binding most citizens together –bestowing even greater wealth on the most skilled and insightful, while consigning the less skilled to a declining standard of living.” 

            The operating word here is skills. Whether it is high school, community college or a 4- year college, the emphasis needs to be on weaving more skill sets into education curriculums to provide a shot at better paying jobs.

Mike Collins is the author of Saving American Manufacturing. his website is www.mpcmgt.com