>
> On Feb 21, 2012, at 8:59 PM, 123hop at comcast.net wrote:
>
> > On the last page of the last LBO, you discuss the top 30 occupations,
> noting that only 15% require a college degree.
> >
> > But then you also note that post-secondary teaching is a growing
> occupation.
> >
> > I thought they were going to industrialize college teaching....videos,
> etc. Plus, if college degrees aren't needed, why would college teachers be
> needed?
>
> Dunno - I'm just reporting what the BLS says.
>
>
Well, some of it may be that these are not the "top" occupations, they are
the "fastest growing" occupations... their numbers may be smaller than less
fast growing but larger in number occupations.... though that's just
thinking about the math. Additionally, however, the last numbers I saw
indicated that something less than 60% (give or take, I don't recall and
have not looked up the exact number) of Americans have "any college" much
less a ful associates, bachelors or other degree. Additionally, simply
because professions don't necessitate an associate's or higher doesn't mean
that employers aren't using that status as a means of culling applicants.
In terms of the growth of post-secondary teaching, every major public university I know of is hiring ever-increasing numbers of contingent faculty to teach ever larger numbers of off-campus, hybrid and web classes... a hiring pattern that keeps many among the glut of ABDs and PhDs alive -- also, they often hire more temporary faculty to teach classes than the number of retiring faculty who leave. Departments that do this can keep their enrollment/revenue stream high - at about the same cost - so as to maintain their legitimacy in the eyes of cost-cutting administrators...