I thought I would share...Dan Hamermesh's email address is:

hamermes@eco.utexas.edu.

Please let him know what you think, I did.

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http://www.dailytexanonline.com/univers ... -1.2061300

Professors dispute employment value of college degrees

By Jordan Haeger

Daily Texan Staff

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Share this article Published: Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Updated: Wednesday, November 11, 2009

With the rising costs of college and the falling number of available jobs, some scholars are questioning whether America’s youth should be put on a conveyor belt directly from high school to a four-year college.

Richard K. Vedder, director of the Center for College Affordability and Productivity and an economics professor at Ohio University, said he thinks college is a waste of time and money for most students. Vedder said not everyone who goes to college is qualified, and some of the jobs in highest demand do not require a four-year degree.

He said that while most students at UT do belong in college, he believes the majority of students nationwide are not prepared for a meaningful college experience. Many students do not gain much from the college experience or spend more than four years earning their bachelor’s degree, which can be very costly, he said.

Of everyone who attends college, Vedder said 45 percent do not graduate in four years.

He said those students should attend a vocational school or community college and perhaps transfer to a four-year university if they excel in those schools.

Vedder also said he sees a mismatch between the types of jobs in demand and those in supply. Many graduates will end up with jobs that have nothing to do with their college majors and do not require the critical thinking skills learned in college, he said.

“There’s a lot of mail carriers in the United States with bachelor’s degrees, and there are a lot with a high school education, and I don’t think the college graduates do a better job of delivering the mail than high school graduates,” Vedder said.

Of the jobs in greatest demand, Vedder said the top 30 or so do not require a college degree. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, of the top 10 occupations with the largest job growth, only one requires at least a four-year bachelor’s degree.

But UT economics professor Dan Hamermesh said a college education trains students to think, and that is something that will never be irrelevant for a job.

“People who say there are too many kids in college are the same right-wingers who say minorities are not smart enough to get into college,” Hamermesh said.

Hamermesh said that not only does college have a tremendous payoff, but it may be an even smarter investment in the current economic climate.

The greatest financial loss in college is not tuition but rather the money students would be earning if they were in the work force, Hamermesh said. He said high school graduates who are not enrolled in college now would not be making money in the workforce anyway because jobs are scarce.

Hamermesh conducted a study in April 2002 in which he found that UT graduates of the classes of 1980, 1985, 1990 and 2000 were earning an average of $89,110 annually.

Median earnings were $60,000.

Hamermesh said he predicts that the median salary for UT graduates would be $75,000 today.

Although many available jobs do not require a college degree, Hamermesh believes employers want employees with critical- thinking skills. Simply learning to complete a task is not the point of college, he said.

“We are not Austin Community College or Texas State University. We should be training the leaders of tomorrow to think,” Hamermesh said.
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I commented to the article:

Comparing ACC to Texas State is not only an insult to Texas State but also insults the important educational mission of community colleges such as ACC. Although I suspect that the comment from Hamermesh may have been taken out of context, it's important to make distinctions for the sake of truth and fairness without simply applying an elitest tenor to an otherwise interesting article.

really?

wow.

i will e-mail him as well.

Make sure to remind him the school that he teaches at has never matriculated a US President. Moron.

Malleus,

Enjoy.

Here is, intact, my full reply to knucklehead (sent prior to your reply):

____________________________________________________________________

Dan Hamermesh,

I would like to provide the following feedback regarding your comments
contained within the aforementioned "Professors dispute employment
value of college degrees". For reference:

http://www.dailytexanonline.com/univers ... -1.2061300

Hammermesh: "Hamermesh conducted a study in April 2002 in which he
found that UT graduates of the classes of 1980, 1985, 1990 and 2000
were earning an average of $89,110 annually. Median earnings were
$60,000".

My comment: The title of the article was "Professors dispute
employment value of college degrees". Are you saying that the only
"valuable" thing that comes out of a college degree is that, a paycheck?

Hammermesh: "Although many available jobs do not require a college
degree, Hamermesh believes employers want employees with critical-
thinking skills. Simply learning to complete a task is not the point
of college, he said. “We are not Austin Community College or Texas
State University. We should be training the leaders of tomorrow to
think,” Hamermesh said".


My comments: I am highly offended by this statement. Texas State is
the only university in the state of Texas to graduate a United States
President, that being Lyndon Johnson. Albeit Johnson was put in place
following assassination of JFK, in 1964 Johnson won 61.1% of the
national popular vote, which remains the highest popular-vote
percentage won by a U.S.presidential candidate since 1820.


Furthermore, I looked over your curriculum vitae, and I did not see
that you ever attended Texas State University - San Marcos. The
Philosophy Department @ Texas State offers a course titled "Philosophy
and Critical Thinking". It is a study of universal philosophical
problems and their solutions with a view toward developing clear
thinking about knowledge, belief, and value. I highly recommend that
you enroll in this course with full intention of completing it and
attend the class on a regular basis. Barring your completion of this

course, I would ask that you keep your unqualified, narcissistic,

solipsistic, arrogant and self-serving comments to yourself.


I perused your Mickey Mouse " practice tests" that you posted online
for your Microeconomics course, and I only wish my microeconomics
tests that I took at ACC as easy as your practice tests.

I am a proud graduate of Texas State University - San Marcos, and I
also attended Austin Community College. I am fully capable of

independent and insightful thought, and actually do command a very
nice salary well in excess of your "median UT salary".


If any portion of your interview was taken out of context, you should
do the right thing and either issue a correction or retraction,
whatever the case my be. Regardless, I have referenced your article
on http://www.bobcatfans.com and shared your email address with about 4,000
bobcatfans.com users. Don't be surprised if you receive a few other
emails on this topic.
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Well..........I was just going to call him and A$$hole but I like what you said better.

That jerk will never reply.

He's got to get surgery to his right arm for all the A's he punched out on his keyboard during grade reports.

Sorry, I know how those big schools work. The kids I get coming into my third semester engineering calculus class from A&M are the same way.

Hamermesh is actually one of the superstars in the UT Econ department.

That actually means that he likely really has very little classroom experience and spends most of his time either doing research or working with graduate students.

Here are his teaching evals from the most recent semester that he taught an undergraduate class:



Profs can get good teaching evals by just being easy, but I can say with extreme confidence that you do not get eval results like that if you're a hardass who is effectively "training students to think." Students don't give bad evals to professors from whom they learn a lot, no matter how hardass they are; they don't give bad evals to professors who are hardasses that they respect. Teaching evals like this one scream out that students didn't learn and they don't respect the professor.

And the fact that he got the highest ratings on returning tests quickly is a nearly sure sign that he's giving multiple choice tests, and I'm betting that he's using a test bank.

Exactly. Instructor evals are inversely proportional to the level at which students learn the material.

If my classes fill first, I'm a pushover and everyone (faculty and students) know that.

I actually had a bit of a back and forth with him this morning.

Got a couple replies from him, in which he tried to change the subject when I called him out.

Anybody want to see them, PM your email and I'll forward them on, don't really feel like posting them on the forum.

He never responded to me. I told him of a UT graduate that works for me that can't compose a proper paragraph. Superior education, indeed.

Mega Ultra Long Distance Bump!

This idiot was on the Daily Show tonight and folks, he is Looney Toons. He thinks ugly people should be protected by equal employment rights just as race, gender and sexual preference are.

If you have no idea what this thread is about, it's because he said this in a Daily Texan article a year or two ago...

“We are not Austin Community College or Texas
State University. We should be training the leaders of tomorrow to
think,” Hamermesh said".

Oops, wrong person. Never mind.

It has been my experience that a college degree is a tiny portion of ones cummulative practical experience.

When confronting ones own insignificance it is common to lash out at others you hope are less relevant than you.....

Pity the good Dr.

hehehehe