Don’t believe the silliness about the demise of college: It matters ENORMOUSLY now for career security

By General Education Advice

The mission of our company has always been focused on helping people reach their potential.  In the last few years, my “rescue” work has increased for twentysomethings.   Many are stuck in the failure to launch syndrome.

My hope is that our “prevention” work – helping students build skills and do well in high school will minimize the need to rescue anyone.  For that reason, I’m writing a new book on guiding parents to help their children with career choice.

Today, even in a highly educated populous like Shoreline, Connecticut, failure to launch is a very real concern.  Helping parents throughout Connecticut who have children who either did not transition well to college or are floundering post college has . become a regular part of appointment calendar.

Most of these children are from socioeconomic groups where this would not have been predicted 20-30 years ago.  Students from Guilford, Madison, Old Saybrook, Old Lyme, East Lyme etc. usually flourished or at least did well enough post college. Now, that’s not necessarily the case.

What happened? In the past, students who did not get their academic footing in high school usually could still get into a pretty good college and then usually wound up with a pretty good job.  This has changed due to changing economy.

Here’s my observation:

Those who attend top schools and major in something employable  are doing well.

Those who attend top schools and do not major in something employable have a longer search period but do fine.

Those who attend lower colleges in something employable can find work locally but usually have trouble getting jobs in major cities.

Those who attend lower colleges in something not employable have a hard time finding career building jobs.

Those who did not attend college or dropped out of college are struggling,  often mightily.

There are plenty of exceptions,  I’m sure, but that’s my general observation of the present state of twentysomethings.