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Listen kids, you can learn something important from the #occupy movement!
And I don’t mean some political platitude about teh evil 1%.
I mean something practically important, something you can personally control right now, and something that will shape the rest of your life.
Please direct your attention to this typical grievance:

She is college educated, probably in debt, and unemployed.
A central complaint for occupyers is that they (1) have student loan debt and (2) don’t have jobs or don’t have good jobs. That makes sense.
Over the last 25 years, the total number of university students in the US has risen by over fifty percent. A lot more kids are going to college. However over that same time, the total number of students majoring in the most in-demand fields (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) has decreased. What are students majoring in instead?

Why are students majoring in soft-studies degrees that are not in demand and don’t pay? In part because government subsidizes all degrees. Government subsidizes (and sometimes guarantees) all student loans, regardless of what degree they’re in. You get grants regardless of what you major in etc. So lenders and universities have no incentive to really care what you major in. They get the $$. It doesn’t matter.
That distorts the natural information signaling of the higher-education market. Private lenders would otherwise offer much lower-interest loans more readily to biochem majors than queer theory majors. Many of these occupyers likely have degrees in fields with little-to-no career value, all of them government subsidized at least in part.
So what’s the lesson you should learn? It’s clear. College is expensive and the generic “college degree” doesn’t necessarily help much if at all. For most people:
- If you do go to college, do not major in a field that is not in demand unless you’re sure you want higher risk of a much harder life.
What majors are not in demand? Avoid:
- psychology
- psychology
- psychology
- we don’t need more psych majors
- sociology
- philosophy
- arts (visual, performing, studio, theater, whatever)
- communication
- journalism
- literature
- education
- social services
- history
- area “studies”
Obviously this doesn’t mean you shouldn’t learn about these subjects or even take classes in them—maybe do a minor. Just don’t major in them if you’re considering career prospects. And if the fields that are in demand absolutely do not appeal to you, consider putting off college or dropping out rather than racking up pointless debt and wasting your time.
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angelsknowtherest reblogged this from joshua-garcia and added:
Employed performing arts major here also I have zero student loans YEEEEEAAAAHHHHHH Thank God my parents convinced me...
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fuckyeahdostoevsky reblogged this from good-gollymissmolly
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theawesomeplatypus reblogged this from good-gollymissmolly and added:
i agree with this completely. i AM a history major, but i also understand that my degree is basically useless if i dont...
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majority-of-one reblogged this from tullip
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supersonic-scorpio reblogged this from donasparacenar
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t3hkat reblogged this from apostrophewar and added:
No one is telling you what you can or can’t major in. What was really being said was don’t come crying to us when you...
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tullip reblogged this from whakatikatika
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byertfyord reblogged this from cadburycrazed
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awaite reblogged this from whakatikatika and added:
Ahaha, I’m not convinced that lilmayruh wasn’t trolling….her response was PERFECT. Combining the indignation of a...
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welcometotheownzone liked this
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graceinmyheart reblogged this from whakatikatika and added:
are some people really so incompetent that they don’t understand the point of the original post….
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nydwracu reblogged this from lilmayruh and added:
lmfao okay go ahead and major in ~~what you find interesting~~, as long as you don’t complain when you’re homeless to be...
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laliberty liked this
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chutney-elemental reblogged this from whakatikatika and added:
Mate, welcome to Tumblr.
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haxtor liked this
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apostrophewar reblogged this from whakatikatika and added:
Exactly. Get in however much debt you like, doing whatever you’d like to make you happy. But I’ll have you know that...
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seamofconsciousness reblogged this from whakatikatika
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seamofconsciousness liked this
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whakatikatika reblogged this from lilmayruh and added:
Nobody is ‘telling’ you what you can study. Study whatever you want. Get into as much debt as you want. Somebody is...
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climberchica liked this
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lilmayruh reblogged this from adultfemale-dftba and added:
no. no absolutely not no. fuck you. you do not get to tell me what I get to study or not. Don’t you dare fucking tell me...
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rachelisamused reblogged this from thisiszachsbrain and added:
What Katie wrote is basically everything I think about this. I’m majoring in Art Education with a minor in Art History,...
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thisiszachsbrain reblogged this from katieissingle and added:
I find it frustrating that someone can can seem to discount the value of other degrees because they don’t have “career...
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katieissingle reblogged this from jamiekennedyexperiment and added:
Okay so I get where this is coming from and stuff. I’m not sure how accurate and/or factual it all is, but for the most...
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