June 13, 2013
A NYT piece on the growth in the percentage of young people getting college degrees included the assertion from Jamie P. Merisotis, the chief executive of the Lumina Foundation:
“There are worrisome signs that the demand for high-skilled talent is increasing more rapidly than we’re actually educating people … We can’t expect our citizens to meet the demands of the 21st-century economy and society without a 21st-century education.”
It is not clear what this evidence would be. The unemployment rate for college graduates, although down from its peak in 2010, is still close to twice its pre-recession level. In addition, wages for college graduates without advance degrees were stagnant even before the recession. These facts suggest that the economy is not suffering from a shortage of highly educated worker, although there may be some narrow occupations and locations in which shortages appear.
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