The Kept-Up Academic Librarian

College Degree Isn't What It Used To Be

Employers and career experts see a growing problem in American society — an abundance of college graduates, many burdened with tuition-loan debt, heading into the work world with a degree that doesn't mean much anymore. The problem isn't just a soft job market — it's an oversupply of graduates. The devaluation of a college degree is no secret on campus. Read more at:
http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1946088,00.html

Career Placement Doing More To Help Grads And Alums Find Jobs

It's a math problem some students might not be prepared to solve: If more people are looking for fewer jobs, how is a recent grad supposed to find work? Colleges, universities and technical schools are adding more staff, offering more assistance and turning to social networking tools to give graduates an edge. MDC is also promoting a number of short-term training programs -- think weeks, not semesters -- to help people who might have found themselves laid off and in need of new skills. Some fields include Web design, bookkeeping, accounting, human resources training and green construction. Read more at:
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/education/story/1313285.html

College Football Coaches Do Well Despite Recession

Here and elsewhere across the landscape of big-time, big-budgeted college athletics, these are sensitive times. A study of compensation reveals that Tedford is one of at least 25 college head football coaches making $2 million or more this season, slightly more than double the number two years ago. Salaries of assistant coaches finds many approaching and even exceeding presidents' compensation and most eclipsing that of full professors. Read more at:
http://www.usatoday.com/sports/college/football/2009-11-09-coaches-salary-analysis_N.htm

Staying Up Late For Learning At Overcrowded IHEs

He is a typical part-time student, with one exception. His class runs from 11:45 p.m. to 2:30 a.m., the consequence of an unprecedented enrollment spike that has Bunker Hill scrambling to accommodate hundreds of newcomers. In the dead of night, he and his classmates dissect Walt Whitman poems and learn the finer points of essay writing, fueled by unlimited coffee, cookies and an instructor who does push-ups beforehand to stay lively. While Bunker Hill offers two midnight classes — the other is Psychology 101 — and Clackamas Community College in Oregon holds welding classes until 2 a.m., others have added classes as early as 6 a.m. to make room for the jobless and others whom the recession has nudged back to school. Read more at:
http://www.universitybusiness.com/newssummary.aspx?news_date=2009-10-28&news_id=20821#top

Engineering Students Need People Skills Too

The students practice networking and hone “elevator pitches,’’ entrepreneurial ideas summarized in under a minute. They don blindfolds for team-building activities. Failure is met with candid critiques about their leadership styles. This isn’t business school. It’s a new engineering class at one of the premier engineering universities in the world, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. MIT created the unusual undergraduate program in response to industry pressures to produce engineers who are as skilled at communicating face-to-face as they are at writing complicated computer codes on their own. Read more at: http://www.boston.com/news/education/higher/articles/2009/10/25/at_mit_a_new_focus_on_generating_people_skills/?rss_id=Boston.com+--+Education+news

HR Professionals View Online Degrees More Favorably

While there is still a stigma attached to online education, new data indicate that employer perception of online schools is changing. Adult mid-career professionals, in particular, are flocking to study in online courses and even earn entire degrees through distance learning. The benefits are obvious: They offer convenience, accommodating work and family schedules. As such, institutions offering online degrees have proliferated in the adult and higher education landscape to meet these needs.However, many people remain concerned about a certain stigma being attached to their online coursework. In a July 2009 survey of human resources (HR) professionals across industries, 76 percent of respondents said they view online university degrees more favorably today than they did five years ago. Read more at:
http://news.thomasnet.com/IMT/archives/2009/10/online-college-degrees-viewed-more-favorably-according-to-reports-still-some-skepticism.html?t=recent

Recession Hitting College Graduates Hard

Amid worse-than-expected job losses and an unemployment rate that hit 9.8% last month, new Labor Department data Friday showed the 21-month recession is taking a greater toll on college graduates than high school dropouts. You're still far more likely to be employed with a bachelor's degree than if you're a high school dropout. But in a telling sign of the breadth of the recession, the latest data also indicate that the numbers of unemployed jobseekers are growing fastest among Americans with higher education. Read more at: http://www.jsonline.com/business/63359637.html

How Much Difference Does A College Education Make

The most subversive question about higher education has always been whether the college makes the student or the student makes the college. So doubt lurks: how much does a college education — the actual teaching and learning that happens on campus — really matter? Earnings may be a flawed measure of an education’s value, but they’re about the only tangible measure we have. And the work that labor economists have done suggests that colleges do indeed deserve credit for much of the earnings gaps between their graduates and everyone else. Read more at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/27/magazine/27fob-wwln-t.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

Advice For Those In Need Of New Careers: IHEs May Be Overly Optimistic

For many people, investing in education or retraining starts with tough choices. Should a human resources manager in retailing who wants to move to health care seek a master’s degree in public health? Or would it suffice to take a series of short courses or workshops from a professional organization? A good first step is to determine which industries and professions are expanding — and how well someone might fit into them. Many universities with continuing education programs offer advice and guidance on the entry requirements for various professions. Always remember, though, that many institutions are trying to raise their enrollments and may be unrealistically optimistic about the labor markets or their own programs’ value to potential students. Read more at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/20/education/20jobs.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss

Finding A Job In Journalism Ain't What It Used To Be

Class of 2008 journalism school students graduated into the worst job market for new journalists in nearly a quarter-century -- and those who managed to find a job usually had few benefits to go with a stagnant salary, according to a survey released Wednesday. "Only six in 10 of the graduates had full-time employment six to eight months after graduation," Becker and Vlad report. That's the lowest level of full-time employment ever reported in the 23 years of the survey. Public relations graduates had the best chance of finding employment, with nearly 71% employed. By contrast 59% of print journalism graduates had found work by the time they returned the survey. Getting a job in journalism is not the happy, or remunerative, experience it once was, the survey found. Read more at:
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1004000222