This is an interesting point and one that has sort of "clicked into place" for me recently. I built a car from scratch, as I've mentioned. I built it at my granparents' house. They were old school - Okies blown out of their cattle ranches by the Dust Bowl who moved to Los Alamos after the war, neither of them having finished 8th grade. But that's the thing - most people didn't finish 8th grade back then. My grandmother castigated me once for showing up after 10am on a Friday, starting in with "when I was your age…" (picture it in the deepest okie drawl you can imagine, from a short woman in her 80s). My grandfather said (same basic drawl) "leave him alone! When you were his age you had two kids!" I'm reading this book at the moment. He spends a lot of time talking about the rise of education and prosperity in the 50s and 60s of Europe. One point he makes is that up until education reforms of the 60s, nobody went to college. Compulsory schooling in Italy went from age 12 to age 14; in Germany it went from 12 to 16. That's a bunch of kids that normally would be working in shops and starting up families who were in school all of a sudden. Combine that with a rise in incomes and suddenly you have teenagers, which Mr. Judt emphasizes were something new under the sun. So really - when we talk about "the prolonged adolescence of teenagers" we need to understand that we only really have three generations of teenagers to compare with: Boomers, Boomers' kids, Boomers grandkids. Here, check this out: - If you were 15 in 1930, you were working and done with school forever, unless you were a total egghead (Ph.D class these days). - If you were 15 in 1940, you weren't looking at college, you were looking at military service. - If you were 15 in 1950, you were going to finish high school for damn sure and maybe go on to college. - If you were 15 in 1960, your choices were about to be college or Vietnam. - If you were 15 in 1970, it was college and maybe grad school. - If you were 15 in 1980, not going to college was a let down and grad school was normal. - If you were 15 in 1990, not going to college was officially deviant and chances were good you'd need a grad degree to accomplish anything. - If you were 15 in 2000, you knew your employment prospects were shit unless you had an advanced degree. - If you were 15 in 2010, you know that not only are you going to need an advanced degree, you're going to have to put in a couple years of unpaid internship in order to even make your money back. "Prolonged adolescence?" More like "prolonged dependence." A middle-class kid in 1930 could start a life as soon as he was done with school - was expected to, in fact. A middle-class kid in 2014 is looking at real unemployment for his age group of pushing 27%, exorbitant prices for a degree that guarantees him nothing, a high school diploma that barely counts for anything, a military engaged in endless war for as long as he can remember, and a peerage system that basically requires him to apprentice to his trade after blowing five or six figures spending five years learning nothing even vaguely applicable to his future life. Much like the retreat to the internet, I think a "prolonged adolescence" is a wholly rational response to a wholly irrational situation. I've said before - for the cost of what a 4-year private degree for my daughter is projected to cost, I'll buy her a couple Starbuck's franchises and call it a day. Friend of mine has a girlfriend. She's a dermatologist. One of her colleagues did a breakdown of the cost of a medical degree and the salary of a specialist after completing residency… vs. the cost of buying a Fedex Home Delivery truck. Fedex has the edge for over 20 years. There you go. Prolonged adolescence. Maybe the plumbers have the right idea...What do you think though, about this "prolonged adolescence" that some are worried about? In some ways, I think that if people are living longer and expected to stay in school longer, that the desire for a prolonged adolescence makes sense from the point of view of a college kid who is experiencing freedom for the first time in their lives.
God, this is too true. I was quite unmotivated in highschool. Here in the Netherlands we have a different (imho better but I'm probably biased) education system where you take a standardized test at the end of elementary school. The teacher's advice combined with the test score decides what level of highschool you go to. The highest level (VWO) gets you into universities. I aced the standardized test with 86/88 points. What this system meant for me that all I had to do was ride it all out. I knew that my high school diploma is basically worthless, only getting it meant I could go to universities. On top of that, I had high school one or two years longer than most of my peers from elementary school. So now that I'm a university student I finally get to learn what I love, and if all goes well without any debt. I think I'm one of the lucky. It's even one of the more practical studies, giving me software skills (GIS) besides a better world perspective, which is not that applicable to life yet. I see the dooming unemployment rates appearing on the horizon, but I'll fight it with a killer CV that I'm building now. There is no guarantee, unless you're into engineering or IT. At the same time I see multiple of my friends with the future you described. People who are racking up massive debts, not really interested in the subject, not going out of their way to learn something practical. Riding it out like I rode out highschool. They haven't realized that the freedom of the 'real world' is already upon them; that they can shape their lives right now. Instead, they patiently wait orders and make finals. I wonder how they'll feel when they're let into the 'real world', where you're not dragged along to the next hoop to jump through.A middle-class kid in 2014 is looking at real unemployment for his age group of pushing 27%, exorbitant prices for a degree that guarantees him nothing, a high school diploma that barely counts for anything, a military engaged in endless war for as long as he can remember, and a peerage system that basically requires him to apprentice to his trade after blowing five or six figures spending five years learning nothing even vaguely applicable to his future life.
Yeah, this part is pretty terrifying. I'm fortunate to be in a program that requires a full year of paid, 40 hour work week internships in order to graduate (making it a 5-year undergrad program), and the level of debt is well into the 5 figures, but won't hit 6 figures (yay?). The great part about this is that I'll have work experience with 3 different STEM companies prior to graduating college, which should work out well for a full-time position. Case in point: Prior to this year getting an internship was awfully difficult, even with some work experience. But with two STEM jobs, managerial positions in College organizations and some other factors, I had a 50% interview/application ratio going on this year which was an absurd change. Hopefully that will continue and I'll be able to get a job that will allow me to pay off this debt as fast as possible. As for 4 year programs that don't have the luxury of the paid internship, or don't require as much of it, that's where the scariest part is. It seems as though you pretty much have to have the work experience prior to leaving college in order to get a decent job after college. A friend of mine studied New Media Design and was damn good at it, but is still unemployed almost 8 months later, and is now moving to Brooklyn. Another friend of mine who is a great photographer has been doing apprenticeships since graduating, and has only recently found a steady job. Despite the level of debt that I'm at, I feel lucky to have the work and managerial experience heading into post-undergraduate full-time employment. Hopefully I'm right about that.- If you were 15 in 2010, you know that not only are you going to need an advanced degree, you're going to have to put in a couple years of unpaid internship in order to even make your money back.
- If you were 15 in 2010, you know that not only are you going to need an advanced degree, you're going to have to put in a couple years of unpaid internship in order to even make your money back.