Matt Taibbi: Ripping Off Young America: The College-Loan Scandal

[JDPriestly]

38. Not if you have children.

And unless you forget how to read at age thirty, you can always go back and read about the Middle Ages or the life cycle of bees. Really.

If you have children, you won't have the time. That is especially true if you have a job that demands your attention 50 hours or more per week. Mom and dad work. Mom and dad cook. Mom and dad clean house. And the children don't want mom and dad to read or do anything but help take care of them.

Get educated first and then learn a trade or job.

Most people will have a number of different kinds of jobs over the course of their lives. What young people need to get in college is a broad base of knowledge so that they can easily move from one job, perhaps even one field to another. Learn to learn. Learn the basics of lots of things.

We need to have a lot more willingness on the parts of employers to train people in the specific jobs they will do.

It is really sad that employers require employees to make the initial investment in preparing for the employer's specific job or field. I say that because the employer usually takes no responsibility and does not share the risk of the cost of the training for a specific job or field and yet insists on having the right to fire the employee at will. The employee cannot even, in most instances, deduct the cost of his training, his investment in his future work, from his income. Only if you are taking further education of some sort is that traditionally possible.

So, employers are, in addition to paying low wages, taking advantage of the public by expecting future employees to make big investments of time and money in getting specialized training to do specialized tasks and fill specialized positions in companies but not giving anything in return.

A broad base of knowledge should precede that acquisition of specific skills. Investing a lot of money in technical training with no assurance that you will get a job that will pay the costs of your training is a foolish thing to do.

A lot of the people who can't get jobs were trained to do jobs that no longer exist. What they didn't acquire or learn are the basic skills like reading analytically, thinking critically, writing creatively and well and communicating with others about more than technical data that would enable them to learn new things easily and be flexible and creative in their employment.

I am older and can tell you that I have had numerous different kinds of jobs in different fields over the course of my lifetime. Most people now do. So it is good to have a broad, liberal arts background and then build your specialty(ies) on that. But beware of focusing too much, say, on art history or music performance. Be ready to go beyond those kinds of fields. Unless you are very lucky, stay single and can live in just the right place and/or have wealthy parents or a sponsor (or sugar daddy) ready to pay for you to live some years without any income much to speak of, you will not have a career in those fields. Be sure you get a good liberal arts background in addition to art or music or whatever. Doesn't hurt to take some business courses.