Oversell college. Waste. Unemployment

It increasingly looks like I was more correct than otherwise in my arguments that maybe we are overselling college. Here is an excerpt from the editorial in the Register Guard, which quotes a report from Skills2Compete-Oregon.

[In] 2007 only 29 percent of Oregonians were employed in jobs that required four or more years of college. Another 19 percent worked in jobs that required only a high school education or less. The majority — 52 percent — held middle-skill jobs. What’s more, nearly half of all job openings until the middle of the next decade will be in middle-skill fields.

The report surveyed current and projected demand in 30 middle-skill occupations, and found that employment in all of them is expected to grow. The median income — half earn more, half earn less — of electricians was $56,800 in 2006, and Oregon will need 12 percent more of them by 2016. Radiology technicians’ median income was $53,500, and the number of jobs in that field will grow by 28 percent. Firefighters’ median pay was $46,400, and their number will grow by 12 percent. Paralegals had a median salary of $39,400 in 2006, and over a 10-year period the number of jobs is projected to grow by 15 percent.

Oregon is not preparing its labor force to fill these jobs.

I suppose it is really easy for me to say, "I told you so!" But, I do remember how my opinion was not quite well-received.

Anyway, watch the group's testimony at a House Committee hearing: