yup. My life, my family, friends, hometown is an excellent example of the myth.
When I was researching the outcomes/education issue back in the mid-nineties, I was working for a Spencer Foundation funded research program, studying workforce training. The big issue back then was the skills mismatch: people had degrees out the wazoo, there just weren't jobs for which a college degree was required.
Somebody also mentioned the weak tea version of the liberal myth: a degree is better than no degree. According to Jay MacLeod's _Ain't No Makin' It_, a study of two groups of high school students, one black and one white, who live in low-income housing, it's not always clear to the people who get schooling and end up without the kind of jobs they think they should have. In other words, if what people mean by better is that they get better jobs than they might otherwise, that's not always true. If what they mean is they get some sort of cultural enrichment that allows the life of the mind to blossom, that's not usually true either since schools track students, etc.
In this study, that takes place over a number of year, in Boston, the white kids all ending up dropping out, alienated by schooling, but also they merely have to look around and see all sorts of people with high school educations working crappy jobs if they have one, moving from one precarious job to another, suffering lay offs, etc. There's no point because, not only does school suck, but it is hard to justify finishing when it doesn't seem to help those who did. The black students, families inspired by affirmative action and talk of growing opportunities for blacks, stick it out and work hard. Most get into college, some enter the workforce. What they find is racism and difficulty finding work, even with college degrees. Dejected, most of them end up turning to some sort of work connected to the underground economy, drugs mostly. One ends up dead, IIRC. They are bitter because they felt they were sold a bill of goods. But they have no way of understanding what's going on, so they blame themselves and, occasionally, understand that the problem is racism. Reading these young men is probably the saddest thing I've ever read, to here the dejection in their voices.
MacLeod has a number of suggestions, none of which deny the reality that there simply aren't enough decent paying jobs to go around. One is that schooling needs to embrace a curriculum that contributes to students' self-understanding as being part of a working class tradition of struggle: a kind of "people's history" and "why unions matter" curriculum. probably if you search on "jay macleod" in the archives it'll turn up crap I've written here before.
their experiences pretty much mirror that of my father, my sister, and countless folks from my hometown. schooling didn't mean jack shit, not even college, in a world where there simply aren't enough jobs.
since people are being dense, disclaimer: i'm not saying there should, therefore, be no education or that education is bad or some such horseshit.
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