There Are 5,000 Janitors in the U.S. with PhDs

[kpete]

There Are 5,000 Janitors in the U.S. with PhDs

There are 18,000 parking lot attendants in the U.S. with college degrees. There are 5,000 janitors in the U.S. with PhDs. In all, some 17 million college-educated Americans have jobs that don't require their level of education. Why?

The data comes from a the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and can be seen here in handy, depressing chart form:


Larger:
http://gizmodo.com/5671062/there-are-5000-janitors-in-the-us-with-phds

This week an extraordinarily interesting new study was posted on the Web site of America's most prestigious economic-research organization, the National Bureau of Economic Research.

Three highly regarded economists (one of whom has won the Nobel Prize in Economic Science) have produced "Estimating Marginal Returns in Education," Working Paper 16474 of the NBER. After very sophisticated and elaborate analysis, the authors conclude "In general, marginal and average returns to college are not the same." (p. 28)

In other words, even if on average, an investment in higher education yields a good, say 10 percent, rate of return, it does not follow that adding to existing investments will yield that return, partly for reasons outlined above.
http://gizmodo.com/5671062/there-are-5000-janitors-in-the-us-with-phds

[Coyote_Bandit]

1. And there's always some

smartass politician around to suggest that unemployed and/or unemployed folks just need to be educated.

While that is true in some cases, it is also true that our for-profit educational system has very little concern about actually placing its graduates into jobs.

[Duer 157099]

2. I wonder how many might have drug convictions?

Seems to me that could explain at least some of them.

[obamanut2012]

3. Or were Classics majors

I'm serious!

Many janitors make quite decent money and have benefits. Some make very good money. It's all according what they mean by "janitors."

[dimbear]

7. It's homage to the Roman god Janus, the god of doors and opportunities.

Classical education opens a lot of doors, such as the door to the basement. Or sometimes the door to the penthouse.

[metalbot]

17. Alcoholism certainly plays a major role

Roughly 10% of our adult population has a dependence problem with alcohol, and when that dependence is untreated, it can easily erase the value of the education that person has received.

(Not arguing with you, as you may be including alcoholism as a mental health issue)

[Nikia]

4. There aren't enough jobs requiring college degrees

Especially in some areas of the country where some graduates may choose to live for various reasons.
Hiring for jobs requiring degrees is usually more selective unless you "know someone". Not all graduates have the "know someone" factor.

[d_r]

5. I remember a physics ph.d. with extremely high IQ

who worked as a janitor because he chose to, because he didn't want anyone "using" his intelligence. He wanted to be his own person. He didn't want to be used by the "man." Seriously.

I saw another physics ph.d. on NOVA who was a "beach bumb" surfer. Living the dream sort of thing.

[NYC_SKP]

6. Investments in education aren't always made just for a financial return.

I pursued my first degree, a Bachelor of Architecture degree, merely because that was the academic discipline that most interested me.

Upon finishing the five-year program, I didn't seek work with architects, but was recruited and I went along with it as an industrial designer, product developer, but eventually went into energy and education.

My Masters was in Instructional Technology, again not for financial reward but for greater access to more interesting positions.

The money doesn't matter as much as learning the content, the experience, and having more choices, at least for me.

[provis99]

9. sounds like a much better way to live.

I know three different lawyers, friends of my sister, who brag how much money they make. Of course, their wives and kids don't even know what they look like since they're always at work, doing bean counting and contract writing stupidity. Better to do something you enjoy, and get some leisure time, than to do soul-destroying work.

[lovuian]

10. So what this tells you is that All workers should be respected

We need Worker representation in every corporation bank and work place

Workers are valued and respected ...that is what America needs to get back too

If they would listen to the Worker ...America would be the richest country in the world now

[quaker bill]

11. Obviously we need to "reform" education

to produce more grads. Apparently there are still some janitors and frycooks without PhDs.

[Athame]

12. I'd be interested in the related number

the percentage of PhDs who are working in their field or a field requiring a PhD. I worked for many years at a major university as an academic analyst. In my department, we had several PhDs in jobs that only required a BA or commensurate experience. We always had applications from those with PhDs or MAs for every position and I knew many who could not get work at any level. They believed that working at a university would be less embarrassing than tending bar or bathrooms. Of course, when most of them started grad school, they believed there would be work for them in their fields.

[limpyhobbler]

13. Janitors with PHDs, etc.

Alot of middle class kids in the 1980s and 1990s got funneled out of high school straight into a four-year college because they had just always been on a "college track".

Parents, teachers, counselors and students all just assumed that college was a default for kids that were on this track, even when there wasn't a clear career goal.

People would sometimes spend a couple years "undeclared" in college before deciding on a major. Sometimes people ended up with degrees that were not really worth much (ancient philosophy or something). Sometimes they ended up with valuable good degrees but found out they just weren't suited to the field for some reason, or they had some mental or physical reason why they couldn't continue in that field, or the job market in that field dried up, or a combination of those factors.

One effect of this has been that if these folks took loans to invest in an education, they sometimes face great difficulty paying the loans off because they don't make enough money in the jobs they end up in.

It also seems like this over-educated under-employed class of people have been some of the early strong supporters of the Occupy-related protests. The burden of student debt and the lack of quality life opportunities (i.e. jobs) are among the issues the protesters seek to draw attention to.

I'm not sure whether the practice of funneling kids strait out of high school into college still goes on or not. But I think these issues are becoming more clear to people, and I wouldn't be surprised to see college applications decreasing.

[Ferret Annica]

14. I have a B.S. in Poli Sci and I am a custodian for a firm that does medical orffices.

Of course this is a bread and butter job that supports my activism activities for forest defense and cetacean issues in this worse than average job market area of Oregon.

So I have to remain stoic about this means to support myself. It's better than living in a car and collecting cans to pay for gas.

[RZM]

15. The US government issued over 117,000 H-1B visas in 2010

The official cap is 65K, but there are numerous exemptions, including for people working at universities, which is where I imagine many of these 5,000 janitors would prefer to work.

That's not mentioned in either the Gizmodo piece nor the Chronicle of Higher Education article it links to.

[uppityperson]

16. I quit nursing once for a janitor job. Same pay, better benefits, less stress. It was a good job.

Went back to nursing later, but still think about the low stress of the janitor job. Worst thing that happened was missing emptying a trash can or an ashtray.

[FarCenter]

18. There are quite a few reasons why careers don't turn out as planned

Physical or mental illness, addiction, injury in accidents, criminal behavior, etc. by the individual.

Or bad marriages, problems with children or other close relatives, religious issues, bad company, etc.

[XemaSab]

19. I can see how if the choice was teaching vs. being a janitor

Janitorial work would be a lot more chill.

[Ikonoklast]

20. My father always said, "I don't care if you end up as a ditch-digger; at least you'll be an EDUCATED

ditch-digger, and no one can take your education away from you."

[csziggy]

21. I used to joke that Tallahassee had the best educated waitpersons

Because so many Floridians came to Florida State University to go to college and then never wanted to leave. Tallahassee used to have limited job opportunities - you could work for the state, one of the universities, or get a retail or service job.

It's not the same now, but it used to be that many college graduates gave up higher paying job opportunities to live in a more pleasant place.