College degree needed to get even low paying jobs today.

It looks like the college degree is the new high school diploma in today's job market as even low paying, $10.00 an hour jobs are requiring degrees of higher learning to even be considered for a job nowadays.

It Takes a B.A. to Find a Job as a File Clerk

The college degree is becoming the new high school diploma: the new minimum requirement, albeit an expensive one, for getting even the lowest-level job.

Economists have referred to this phenomenon as “degree inflation,” and it has been steadily infiltrating America’s job market. Across industries and geographic areas, many other jobs that didn’t used to require a diploma — positions like dental hygienists, cargo agents, clerks and claims adjusters — are increasingly requiring one, according to Burning Glass, a company that analyzes job ads from more than 20,000 online sources, including major job boards and small- to midsize-employer sites.

This up-credentialing is pushing the less educated even further down the food chain, and it helps explain why the unemployment rate for workers with no more than a high school diploma is more than twice that for workers with a bachelor’s degree: 8.1 percent versus 3.7 percent.

NY Times

How long before this spreads down to even Wal-Mart and other low-paying retail jobs? If the jobs market gets tight enough, it won't be long before you need a degree just to push a broom.

Scary times indeed. Now it seems one needs to put themselves in a lifetimes worth of debt to obtain an education just to be eligable for the most minimal of jobs.

This was bound to happen with the massive push to get everybody and their cousin to attend college.

More students are in debt than ever before thanks to outrageous tuition and because of the glut of graduates the jobs dont pay nearly what they were expecting.

What was once a special sign that you've gone above and beyond is now as ordinary as finishing high school.

Consider the consistent dropping of standards and a bachelors degree is basically the new high school diploma. It just costs $30K to get.

reply to post by FortAnthem
What a creative way to keep people in debt! First push everyone to go to college and get a degree, make sure that you outsource enough jobs to other countries so that there aren't enough jobs paying decent wages for the kids with their new degrees, and then watch the kids slave away at minimum wage jobs that insure they can never pay off their college loans. What do you get? Slaves for life who don't have time or are too tired to question anything the government does to further enslave them. Ingenious!

If anyone asks you for a degree in economics to clean toilets. Tell them to take a flying jump off a cliff. Its called " taking the mickey" and you need to say " no" because to clean toilets you need knowledge of toilets and cleaners which may take 1 month to learn max. Not some 3yr degree.

reply to post by FortAnthem


There is a class for janitorial and custodian studies.

As a college student myself, I could've told you that we knew this fact years ago before now. If we're going for specialized fields nowadays even, it's masters or better or no job inside of the field of study. Some could say it's a major scam, some could say it's deemed worth of time, or some could be like me and just have no real opinion quite yet. All I know is I'm under a mountain of debt and it's going to be quite an adventure getting out.

It's kind of difficult to come into the undergraduate program years ago full of hope at a new future and then those hopes being batted down as bachelor's degrees are being basically slapped out of the way for anything higher up and being flung around for "common" jobs. It kind of feels like I should've just saved my money and around 3 years of my life.

I'm only 8 more classes away from my new aged college degree.

This semester, I'm going to need all the luck I can get so it's not 9 classes away.



So draining, I'll tell you.

Hey there,

I'm glad you posted this! I myself am a Sophomore in college and I think about this everyday. If you don't get a college degree you're basically screwed unless you've done some excellent networking, or have a brilliant mind and invent something...

I know i'm going to have some nice debt when I leave college and there will be no guarantee that I will find a decent job to help me pay it off. Part of me feels like trade school is the best way to go this day in age. Not only is it cheaper, but you actually learn a marketable skill and can do something with it.

I decided to stop majoring in Business this semester because i realized that half of the classes i was taking were a bunch of crap. I was learning NOTHING and I knew that sitting through those classes would get me a nice little piece of paper that says I understand Business, but in reality I wouldn't have learned anything! But that is getting off track...

Like you said, college degrees are the new high school diploma's and it scares me knowing that after these four years of University I will be in debt, and I will not be guaranteed a good job.

Maybe I should just drop out, sell my soul to the illuminati and become the next president...

You need skills, not a piece of paper proving you can be conned.

I just aced a skills assessment for a job starting at $15/hr, and am going for the second interview on Friday.

No college degree, GED, and no previous work experience on the books.

How did I do it? I'm smart, and absorbed lots of tech terminology over the years. That's it.

That piece of paper won't do squat, if you can't perform with some decent skills.

Bachelor of Science....we've got "SHOVEL READY" jobs galor in the United States of America. Masters degree...Doctor of Philosophy... "PICK AND SHOVEL READY" jobs for you bitches AND mountains of DEBT that you can never walk away from.... Wage slavery 2.0 has just arrived...step right up and get the latest ap for your Iphone.

The people who went to college at great expense and wound up as managers of Subway or other jobs where a degree is not needed feel that if they went through this expense to get a lousy job than everyone needs to. How would it look if someone without any college worked their way to the top of Subway.

Subway is just an example, the same thing is going on all over the country. People of a kind think alike and take care of their own. This trait of humanity has been around for a long time. It has gotten out of hand in our society as it has in other parts of the world. Societies have gone astray, now they want to raise the minimum wage so these college grads working at Subway can pay back their loans. Our education system has major flaws, most jobs available here in America do not need a college education. On the job training would be better, being that I was an employer I know this as fact. People with degrees do not work in the trades as well as the person with a high school education most times, the people with degrees feel they are entitled to more money because of their expenditures. Quality of work and productivity should govern wage, not education.

reply to post by nomnom


Sure, just rub it in to all us poor students.

reply to post by Honestabe28


****NICE SHINEY DISCLAIMER BEFORE I ADD THIS POST, I AM NOT IN ANY WAY, SHAPE, OR FORM SUICIDAL AND HAVE A HEALTHY LIFE ETHIC IN THIS CURRENT TIME.****

Ah yes, the mountain of debt. I'll be looking at about 65,000 after graduation to pay back with a lovely topping of interest.

As it was said above honestly, yeah we were all conned. There's nothing we can do about it now. All there is to do is finish out, bend over, and take our medicine from good old Uncle Sam.

Honestly, I envision myself a few years down the road probably snapping and either leaving for Canada to bail or at least find better work to wire my family the money to keep paying (since my mother's a cosigner for my loans and if I bailed, she'd be stuck with the debt) or just deciding that I'm worth more dead than alive and going to play some soft music as I take immense quantities of night night pills.

reply to post by Manhater


Hey, your avatar finally evolved. Hopefully your spirit rises because of this

It is cazy how the whole things works.

Way too many people with quality so the employers can keep the wage low and get overqualified candidate for the position.

You want higher pay? Next! - and there will be 100 people ready to fill that spot.

Bachelor Degree does not have the same quality as it did in 1995.

Now you need Masters to stand above.


Believe it or not, in the lab i work, a person with bachelors was washing glasswares(not too bad but..come on)...i was lucky with co-op program during my school years that got me my current position.

Heck even for volunteer they are looking for higher educated candidate, even if they ask for minimum requirement on application.

If you are 35+ and have a good job, be happy. Because now people with good education cant even get sh*t.

By the way, sweat shop warehouses will need high school diploma as minimum requirement, soon to come to Canada.

College is the biggest scam marketed to kids and young adults. They said the same thing back when I was in high school 20 years ago.

I was the only one of all my friends to not go to college. Now they are all still in student loan dept, with very low paying jobs. They used to scold me when I decided not to go to college. i instead decided to take a chance and chase my dream.

I am now a business owner with no student loan dept. And I firmly believe you'll be better off taking that college fund and investing it into your own business. Find something you have a natural talent for, can teach yourself the skills needed, and start it in an area that is in high demand for your product/service. Put your heart and soul into it and don't be afraid to work 60+ hours a week in the first few years or more. You are better off putting your career in your own hands instead of in the hands of a company who can drop you short notice at any time to protect their bottom line.

No one cares about you. You have to fight for yourself.

Yet another sad but true reality that is proof that a debt based economy does NOT work!

Why would I want to even hire someone who is chasing something to pay for their college financial debt? I'd much rather hire the person chasing a dream. I even think that a person without a degree, more times than given credit for, is just a person who may have done the math to realize that it is not worth taking on so much debt to obtain a job that isn't even a guarantee when the degree is achieved.

As an employer, wouldn't it be more economical to start thinking that someone that obtains a cheaper online college certificate knows how to save and spend money? Likely equating to someone that looks after a business' financial affairs better.

So, I'd hate to add to the bad issues that college years spent and debt lead to... but unless people get their degrees with full conviction of what they want to obtain with the degree, they are likely just wasting everyones time and money. A few bucks more in pocket at the end of the rainbow is not worth it if you ask me.

reply to post by Myomistress



I love the honesty

But seriously, If i end up losing my mind because of college and decide to drop out at some point, i'm ditchin this soon to be # hole and heading to Africa to go live off the land.

For some reason that seems more sane than me staying here haha

I’m 26 and started working right out of high school, didn’t go to college. I’m now married, own two cars out right, have a house, and it’s the only debt I have, and a good paying job. My friends that are now graduating are in debt, living in “bachelor pads” with a bunch of dudes, no jobs, or low paying jobs.

Who made the better choice?

It’s funny the mentality of some of my friends, I had a buddy tell me, “well if I take this class my starting pay will increase $5,000 a year.” What? Who is telling you this BS?

I knew there was going to be a surplus of graduates in collage when I was 16. The writing was on the wall. Everyone and their moms were going to college. “You must go to college or your life will be hard” was told to me all my high school life. I took a job out of high school and worked my way from the ground up. My experience trumps any degree now. Its easy to work your way up when your young like me. When your old, people dont want to hire a 50 year old warehouse men that will work his way up in a company.

Its an employers market right now. They can post ridiculous qualifications for a job knowing somewhere there is somebody with it. I read one wanting a masters of mechanical engineering, with 6 or 7 different certifications for a $15/hr maintenance job. The days of walking in, applying and starting are way over. Last HR person I talked to said on average they get over 100 qualified applicants per job, plus countless others that are not qualified. Talking engineering field here. A lot of the jobs that a BS was good enough for 10 years ago when I got mine, are requiring friggen PhD's.