I always assumed that kids who went to Harvard were smart, really smart, but now I have my doubts.
Read this quote from Bloomberg.com
Students of the eight elite colleges composing the Ivy League in the northeastern U.S., such as Sandra Korn of Harvard and Tom Moore of Cornell, are criticizing their universities for sending high numbers of graduates to Wall Street, rather than to jobs that emphasize community service. Careers in financial and consulting firms are frequently presented as the best or only option, said Korn, a sophomore majoring in history of science and gender studies who participated in the Nov. 28 protest.
Or how about this one:
About 22 percent of Harvard 2011 graduates who planned to enter the workforce were headed into finance and consulting, down from a high of 47 percent in 2007, according to a Harvard Crimson survey published in May. Half the students entering those fields said they would have chosen to work in other professions if salary weren’t a concern.
If salary weren’t a concern, duh ya think? Somebody just paid $200,000 for you to get an Ivy League degree so perhaps salary is a concern. I guess if you are majoring in the “history of science and gender studies” you haven’t been exposed to the real world, but guess what, you need money to do good things too. If you want a career in community service, that’s great. If you see your calling teaching other people to study genders, be my guest. However, expect your fulfillment in life to be largely non-material and that’s fine too, but don’t complain about forever being part of the 99% or perhaps the 50%. And don’t expect other people to keep paying your way as may have been the case in college.
Keep in mind as well that the huge endowments Ivy League schools enjoy that enable them to offer courses in obscure fields of study and to conduct research came not from the history majors, but rather the one percent. You know, the people who make the tents you occupy in, the smart phone you text with and the malls you shop in, the movies you enjoy and the car you drive. And while we are talking about endowments, let’s not forget they are invested with those Wall Street types you so despise as are the pension funds for millions of Americans.
I guess if you are twenty-something we can give some slack when it comes to your naive outlook. However, one has to wonder how much the negative blame game being played by our President influences such disconnected perspectives.
Here is a message for those concerned students. Become a politician that does the right thing and does not make a career of social engineering that gets our country into fiscal trouble. Be one who is honest with people and does not make promises that create trillions of dollars in liabilities for future generations. And, oh yes, use that great education to think and analyze beyond the headlines, rhetoric and sound bites.
QUINNSCOMMENTARY 
Wow, Bob, you’ve really drank the Kool Aid, haven’t you?
Are you puroposefully or out of ignorance turning a blind eye to the FACT that
The 30 worst months for employment in the past 25 years (!!!) have all come after June 2009 (pssst… that’s when Barry Soetoro aka Obama was “President”)
Oh, and GW Bush. Yeah, during his term there was a record-breaking 52 straight months of employment growth. Yeah, never before in recorded US History had that happened until GW took office.
And, Bob, really? Carter? Are you seriously holding him up as an exempar of brilliance? The guy who’s answer to the energy “crisis” (Democrats love that word as it is a good opportunity to regulate and tax the producer class) was to put on a sweater?
The same Carter who brought us 2 hour long gas lines, double digit interest rates and stagflation that crippled the economy? The guy who encouraged the rise of the Ayatola’s Islamic Revolutionin in Iran, resulting in the 444 day Iran Hostage Crisis? (Which, coincidentally ended on the day of inauguration of, yep you guessed it, President Ronald Reagan!)
Bob, you may wish, hope and delude yourself all you want about left-wing Socialist politics as the answer, just as you may wish to delude yourself in the “value of higher education”. Bottom line is that many in the trade profession (welder, roofer, plumber,etc.) are often making far more money, with 99% less debt and doing so from a far younger age than a large portion of those with degress from Ivy Leagues.
Here’s a study from Princeton comparing the earnings of a plumber vs. a doctor with results that just might surprise you.
[ARTICLE: Harvard vs. plumbing school? You’d be surprised ROI on expensive colleges shockingly low; tuition, loans, taxes take toll]
Anyway, Bob, thanks for the laughs.
lol
LikeLike
Actually, here’s a better article on the Doctor vs. Plumber case example.
http://finance.yahoo.com/tech-ticker/forget-harvard-and-a-4-year-degree-you-can-make-more-as-a-plumber-in-the-long-run-says-prof.-kotlikoff-536046.html
What does it indicate when one can forgo “higher education”, especially those from institutions with $100,000+ price tags and begin, at age 18, working as a plumber, mechanic, waiter, roofer, electrician, commercial fisherman, oil rig worker, etc. and make FAR more money for a FAR greater percentage of one’s life?
Where does the vaunted “higher education” play into this?
And one more thing, Bob. Are you suggesting, then that those with “higher education” work on eeeeeeevil Wall St. (as many from Harvard do) or for the despised, capitalistic Republican-controlled Corporations in order for the degree to economically pay for and justify itself?
You left-wingers cannot have it both ways, so which is it?
Is it better to be part of the “99%” blue-collar workers who would be much better off with a trade school certification, or the vile “1%” where a $100,000 degree and 8 years of schooling can be justified?
As a Republican with rock-solid principals and beliefs, I am consistent and do not hesitate with such questions. They do not bend and change with the context.
But, I realize you’re a left-winger who believes that big government Socialism is the answer and who must “examine the subtle nuances of individuals circumstances before answering” so I’ll give you time to respond.
LikeLike
As a parent of someone who attended the Ivy League and is now a professor at same let me educate on the purpose of a great liberal arts education. It is not just so you can go off and make millions although many do, but rather to be able to think and act globally and so if a percentage of those endowed with a great intellect choose to go and perform rewarding but not particularly high paying endeavors such as my child because they derive great satisfaction in knowing they are helping to educate please don’t to be to quick to pass them off as socialist miscreants who must be religated to the 99%. Many can and do go on to be leaders in industry and yes even in banking and later after having made their millions they decide to give back by taking on the rigors of politics and while they can and do err it is often the reality of the politics that make them abdicate their own morality in the interest of wanting to accomplish change. I think of people like Pataki, Blomberg and yes even Corzine. On the other hand some such as our President decided early on that this was the career path he preferred and I for one could not, nor would not, want his job for even a day. To dismiss his ilk as merely a community organizer is profoundly unfair because he devotes his life to accomplish what he beleives in often based on values learned by the global thinking imbued at his institution of higher learning. In the end however his position and profession is such that his every move is analyzed for intent. When in office their every move is analyzed for its political undertones. Yet when you think about the last two generations of our presidents, some have gone on after their term(s) in office to perform service to the nation and mankind in general oh, and by the way, they are usually Democrats (Carter, Clinton) The Republicans just go off and live out their lives ( Reagan,Bush, Bush) . Think about that for a minute>>>> I think it is a beleif in doing service to mankind that drives them not just a political expediency or coincidence. The fact that a person of Carter’s or Obama ‘s intelligence could have easily brought them millions in private enterprise should be weighed when one is so quick to criticize their actions.
LikeLike
I believe you misread my post. I never said or implied anyone to be a socialist miscreant or anything like it. In fact I said their choice of a career is fine. However, that implies living with the consequences and that’s fine as well. But that does not give them the right to discredit people who choose an investment or consulting career and it does not give them the right to push a university to their way of thinking.
There is a place for everyone and that includes the 1%. We would be in tough shape if the vast majority of people followed their calling as a community organizer, majored in gender studies or were artists. Somebody actually has to work, create, invest, build and all the rest.
One final point. It’s hard to accept people complaining about their college loans from high cost schools while pursuing vocations that give them few resources to repay.
Dick
Editor Quinnscommentary.com
LikeLike