Delusions of Education Grandeur
Some public officials leave office as far behind the knowledge curve as when they entered it.
“One recent analysis found that 95 percent of the jobs created since 2008 required some postsecondary education or training,” outgoing U. S. Secretary of Education John B. King, Jr. declared at the Center for American Progress (CAP) last Wednesday. “Think about that.”
“If you didn’t finish high school—or even if you graduated—you can knock on 95 doors looking for a job before one opens. And everyone else without higher education will be trying to squeeze through those last five doors alongside you.”
It’s a heart-warming peroration until you factor in all the college graduates unable to find work over the past decade. Moreover, he didn’t use the word “net,” as in the number of jobs you get when you subtract the old from the new, or, put more simply, the number of jobs, period, as administration officials like to say.
“Since 2010, 15 million jobs have been created,” The New York Times reported on November 4, 2016. Here’s the problem with that: There are about 50 million working-age men and women out of the labor force.
And that’s before college graduates even fill out their first job application.
Photo by Ivana Di Carlo 
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Malcolm A. Kline
Malcolm A. Kline is the Executive Director of Accuracy in Academia.
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