With only a 50% graduate/job rate. Should freshman classes be suspend for 5 yrs,

[CK_John]

until the jobs catchup with population.

CCC type jobs, Peace Corps, guarantee non combat jobs in the armed forces, should be provided for those waiting for class resumption to begin.

[scheming daemons]

1. That statistic has already been discredited

I won't do your homework for you. Go to snopes.

[CK_John]

11. Studied done for AP and other studies refute that. Also what do you think to rate is. your

This article outlines the problem.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/22/job-market-college-graduates_n_1443738.html

[bowens43]

2. even if true, of course not, how silly would yhat be?

[FSogol]

4. All those freshmen should just play X-box games until the economy recovers.

Federal subsidies for Skittles, Red Bull, Mountain Dew, and Cheetos!

[CK_John]

13. What's so silly, choice is to shut down 50% of all univ.

[FSogol]

18. And what should all the employees of Universities do?

[Javaman]

27. Right. And which universities do you shut down?

and what do you do with the now unemployed people who worked at them?

So the logic is: greatly increase unemployment so the students can catch up?

Not only that, the ancillary businesses and jobs would also suffer a massive direct hit if those same universities were shut down.

shutting down 50% of the universities is such a colossally stupid idea that has not been clearly thought though.

[FSogol]

3. Mitt says that out of work college students should borrow $20-30k from their parents

and start their own companies.

[MineralMan]

5. And what would those displaced freshmen be doing

in the meantime, do you think? Just living at their parents' homes? I'm not sure you've thought this one through.

[GObamaGO]

8. You beat me to that!

Great minds...

[CK_John]

16. Read the post, CCC, Peace C, And non combat service. nt.

[MineralMan]

28. Yes, I saw that, thanks.

Probably not a reasonable alternative, though, for high school graduates looking to begin their adult lives. If what you propose is their only realistic choice, what is the difference between that and some sort of mandatory service?

[Javaman]

29. the right wing is stone walling on any jobs creation,

do you honestly believe they would go for providing government supported programs to help out of work college students?

[GObamaGO]

6. What are the Freshman aged kids supposed to do in the meantime?

There are not enough non combat jobs in the armed forces, or room in the Peace Corps for them. And there are not really that many jobs NOT requiring some post-secondary education.

[obamanut2012]

12. There are basically zero non combat jobs in the military

As Jessica Lynch could tell the OP, since she had a "non combat" job.

And, why should people who don't want to be in the military be forced to do so???

[CK_John]

19. So now they have no job, and high student loans that start within a yr.

I sure we can find work for building bridges work crews, etc.

[GObamaGO]

30. Where are we finding the money for those infrastructure projects?

We have plenty of examples of crumbling infrastructure in our country, but it appears as if we have plenty of money for war, but no money to repair our country.

[Javaman]

31. LOL we have millions of people perfectly qualified to do that work..

that aren't being hired due to repuke stone walling.

perhaps they will hire college students at slave wages to do the work instead! that's a plan! yes, destroy unions some more!

You really haven't thought this through, have you?

[MineralMan]

34. We already have a huge unemployed population

with the skills to do that work. How are 18-year-olds going to learn those trades? If you think the skills needed for bridge and road construction are innate in 18 year olds, you're incorrect. Sadly, most people graduate from high school with virtually no marketable skills. There are exceptions, of course, but most can't just step into skilled jobs.

Again, you're not successfully thinking this proposal through. Maybe we could put them all on chain gangs and have them chop roadside weeds? Work crews, indeed...

[CK_John]

37. I think you are romanticizing HS grad rates and what can be done without a degree.

What I see of HS grads they can hardly read or write.

[MineralMan]

38. How many recent HS grads do you know?

I know a few. Every one of them can read and write. I think you are minimizing things to make your case. The ones who cannot read and write will not be going to college in the first place, for the most part. They're already looking for work and not finding any.

[jberryhill]

7. WTF?

Getting an education is not about getting a job.

It has historically been the case, depending on what historical period and place one looks at, that getting a college education correlates well with employment and higher pay, but that's not even the POINT of getting an education.

[CK_John]

20. Wrong, high ed has never been about education, but building a work force for industry.

Now we have no industry and univ have lost a large part of their utility.

My opinion.

[jberryhill]

23. ummm....

For most of this country's history, colleges were never intended for people who were planning to "work" for a living, nor was it accessible or affordable to the middle class.

[CK_John]

24. Until 1950's only 6% of the population went to college. The GI Bill

openup high ed.

[MineralMan]

36. In the 1950s, they built a sewer system in my home town.

Ditches were dug by hand, by guys earning $1.25/hr. A couple of those ditch diggers died when the ditch walls collapsed. We don't hand dig ditches anymore. While I can operate a backhoe, I'm not an expert at it. How many 18 year olds can operate excavating equipment? Will your high school graduates go back to manually digging ditches? I don't think so.

[white_wolf]

41. I really hope you are being sarcastic with this post.

If not you exemplify everything that is wrong with the American education system. College is about education, not job training.

[lumberjack_jeff]

43. The college industry depends on people not doing the ROI math.

College cheerleaders frequently say that college teaches people critical thinking skills, yet a complete lack of them is a prerequisite for incoming freshmen.

"English lit degree? No money down? How can I lose!"

Schools do everything they can to distance themselves from the mundane realities of the actual world, which include ROI.

[Fumesucker]

22. Unfortunately it pretty much has to be the aim of an education to get a job when it's so expensive..

Particularly with debt that's impossible to discharge in bankruptcy, student debt is a bubble that's on the verge of popping and it's going to be a horrendously painful one for a great many people.

[99Forever]

9. This is one of those...

... "did (s)he actually say that?" posts that leave me blank.

[scheming daemons]

15. If you'd been here a few years, you'd notice that most of CK_John's posts are like that

.

[Javaman]

32. I call these types of posts...

instant headaches.

so much wrong, so little insite and a vast amount of ignorance.

[obamanut2012]

10. No

[Warren Stupidity]

14. No.

series?

The stat is bullshit, but even if it weren't what a gigantic screwage of a generation that would be. By the way, dumping all those people out of school and into the job market, even if they are just gummint jobs, would not exactly help do anything other than make matters worse.

[FarCenter]

17. Jobs aren't going to catch up

Business is being reorganized to produce more with less labor.

[cthulu2016]

21. This must be a "Swiftian" proposal

An uneducated person needs a job at least as much as an educated person... education does not create the demand for a job.

If we were in a political position to provide government employment to all would-be college students then it would be far more sensible to provide that employment to an equivalent number of currently unemployed people.

That would tighten the labor market more than suspending education would, and lead to more jobs being available for eventual graduates.

[FSogol]

25. A Modest Proposal? Eat the Freshmen!

[hunter]

26. No. We should decrease work hours, increase the minimum wage, increase vacation time...

...lower the retirement age, raise taxes on the very wealthy, institute a single payer health plan, and make college free.

More CCC type jobs would be a good thing too.

I think government should create as many good jobs and student positions as needed to put industries that depend on crappy, inhumane, and/or low paying jobs out of business.

Everyone ought to be in a position to walk away from a job that sucks without any risk of starvation, homelessness, or loss of medical benefits.

[GObamaGO]

33. +1

[LanternWaste]

35. I think that higher education should be available at minimal cost to anyone who wants

I think that higher education should be available at minimal cost to anyone who wants it (much as the French system-- publicly financed, though private universities are available for those who'd rather attend them instead at market prices).

Hence, one would have an education in our pockets (always a good thing, yes?) regardless of whether it is directly applicable to the markets in the here and now.

Although I certainly would like to see a Roosevelt-style WPA in existence, but as the one is not predicated on the other...

[4th law of robotics]

39. Perhaps we could just encourage more kids to take up trades/majors that are employable

Maybe instead of spending 5+ years learning Sumerian poetry instead focus on learning how to fix plumbing issues.

Fewer keg-stands involved granted. But greater earning potential in the long run.

[provis99]

40. well, we could just eat them instead.

Jonathan Swift figured that would be a good way to deal with unemployed Irish people.

[Zanzoobar]

42. This proposition is absurd.

[XemaSab]

44. Yeah, and all those union professors

can go break rocks for 5 years.

[CK_John]

45. Just the freshman class would be affected. Those in school would work

there way thru the system and graduate.

[Earth_First]

46. We're being conditioned to accept that unemployment will remain at 6.5-8%

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1002718507