The Value of a Degree

I was reading a piece yesterday that went into detail what some companies are facing as they go out and hired new graduated college students.  They found that the 'kids' were lacking in various skills that they should have acquired in college.  Mind you....we are talking about four-year university graduates.  The piece discussed the problems of analytical concepts, project design, time-line construction, teamwork, etc. All of these....used to be taught at least in some marginal way, and you'd finish college with a basic understanding how your skills would fit into a commercial company.

The humor part of this....which is left out of the news piece....is that this 21 or 22 year old 'kid' is standing there and all happy that HR hired him for some $40,000 a year job, and then he likely discovers the the next week as he shows up.....he's automatically signed up for five seminar episodes taught by some fifty-year old individual from some private firm, and discussing this mystery thing called 'project management'. 

A whole week will pass with 'Professor Bob' talking about this big science agenda called project management.  The kid will be amazed at all the facets and benefits of project management.  Then at the final hour of the class....the 'kid' will ask why they don't teach something like this in college?  'Professor Bob' will just grin and tell the kid that in the 1970s and 1980s....it was a regular part of any business degree, and that they've weakened the whole program to such an extent....that your degree is mostly worthless.

A week or two will pass, and another three-to-five day seminar will occur.  Over that year, the company will waste at least thirty days of work production in getting the 'kid' to a level that they are beneficial to the company. 

So the question is....is a bachelor's degree really worth the $50,000 to $90,000 that it cost today?  If you get hired and they automatically revalue the degree to a three-quarter situation....did you get cheated out of the full value of the education?  Does the college even care?