Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by mrpg on Friday April 21 2017, @06:16AM   Printer-friendly
from the college-matters dept.

In a recent study, we investigated how many of the wealthiest and most influential people graduated college. We studied 11,745 U.S. leaders, including CEOs, federal judges, politicians, multi-millionaires and billionaires, business leaders and the most globally powerful men and women.

We found about 94 percent of these U.S. leaders attended college, and about 50 percent attended an elite school. Though almost everyone went to college, elite school attendance varied widely. For instance, only 20.6 percent of House members and 33.8 percent of 30-millionaires attended an elite school, but over 80 percent of Forbes' most powerful people did. For whatever reason, about twice as many senators – 41 percent – as House members went to elite schools.

For comparison, based on census and college data, we estimate that only about 2 to 5 percent of all U.S. undergraduates went to one of the elite schools in our study. The people from our study attended elite schools at rates well above typical expectations.

Why waste $150,000 on an education you could get for $1.50 in late fees at the public library?


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Friday April 21 2017, @03:49PM (1 child)

    by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Friday April 21 2017, @03:49PM (#497459) Journal

    I got a tech degree. But that was back when microcomputers had 64 K bytes. The newest ones might have 96 K or 128 K.

    The thing is, the field was new. Most of the general public didn't even realize the potential. The market for computers (and the software that makes them do something) was so big that we couldn't even imagine just how big it was, at the time.

    There were a lot of people who would start out in the same classes, but couldn't cut it. They could take a language class, say FORTRAN. Learn all the basic statements. But not be able to put together a simple algorithm or flowchart to save their life. That was the problem.

    I don't know, but I suspect that today the same situation exists. There are people who can (which you may be), and there are people who can not. Unfortunately, those who can not tend to be great at passing tests and interviews. So employers grow more and more skeptical because it is difficult to find the ones who can do. (And the interview process has become disconnected from the actual work as a result.)

    I look at things some people will not do today. That with a little ambition, I realize geez, look what I can do on today's hardware, development tools, etc compared to the old days when it was uphill both ways and in plain ASCII. No online help. You had to memorize a stack of manuals. I simply don't know, but suspect that today developers have it too easy. Maybe not. But back in the day, to build, for example, a financial accounting application, you had to build your own friggin' database, b-trees, balancing, etc. Absolutely nothing was off the shelf. No frameworks. No tools. Just a compiler. As a consequence, today when faced with a challenging problem, and in a new environment, but recognizing I've got all the basic parts I need to get things in and get things out of the computer, I can build whatever it takes. Just roll up your sleeves. And that's with less energy than I once had.

    So I don't know what the problems are. Maybe there aren't good tech jobs? Maybe you are not exploitable enough? Maybe employers won't pay what people are worth when starting out? I don't pretend to know. But things are different now.

    --
    People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.
    Starting Score:    1  point
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   2  
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 21 2017, @04:42PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 21 2017, @04:42PM (#497482)

    I recall when I experienced a compiler first time. It was like.. "It will do the assembly programming for you!?!?, WOAW!! *hack-hack-hack-kaching-hack-hack-kaching* ;-)

    As for jobs, I suspect many "tech" jobs isn't really about technology. So thus people god at that don't get hired.

    And many in human resources (cattle handlers), bosses, and other loose people not really central to the core business just don't understand what they should be looking for.