only 26% of pop. has a 4 year degree!
 

yep..........just caught this little tidbit. only 26% of U.S. population has a 4 year degree. way under many other industrialized nations. corporate america scrambling to find degreed individuals to fill positions.

why as the greatest nation on the planet do we underscore the value of education?

And it hasn't been of any discernable benefit to all of that 26%.

Where'd you get that statistic? I thought it was less than 20%.

Re: only 26% of pop. has a 4 year degree!
 

Wipro exec was on CNBC this morning. He states India graduates 400k engineers each year vs 75k in the US. Ouch.

Re: only 26% of pop. has a 4 year degree!
 

when i was in college, back in 96, that was the stat too...about 1/4 of the population.

it's getting very expensive , with tuitions over 100K for 4 years.

No surprise:
0–14 years: 20.4% (male 31,095,847; female 29,715,872)
15–64 years: 67.2% (male 100,022,845; female 100,413,484)
65 years and over: 12.5% (male 15,542,288; female 21,653,879)

I don't understand those stats, mike.

Population breakdown by those age groups?

I believe Mike was posting our population broken into age/gender groups.

The stats above show that at a minimum, 20% of the pop (0-14yrs) can't have a 4yr degree. If you look at the ages (15-20yrs) that will rule out another percentage. Then look to the over 65yrs bracket, when less of the population got 4yr degrees and the will rule out some more.

I wonder what the percentage is for working age individuals, say 22-65yrs?

saw this tidbit the other day on i think, yahoo.

me a conservative...................LMFAO!

i'll put my flame suit on for this one........what would you call a ............native of arizona, college educated(cum laude), off road racer(bikes buggies trucks), p-car owner,scuba diver for 33 years, worked for porsche when younger, beer drinking, CCW carrying, own too many guns, married once-2 kids,divorced once, aerospace machine background, pro-abortion,war-mongering hawk, own home, plays drums alot while drinking excessive beers at excessive volume, while breaking excessive sticks, raised by staff sarge army purdue eng. degree father, mother who was also had degree and spoke 5 languages., animal lover, hunter/fisherman!

hell i dont EVEN KNOW WHAT I AM?????

my voter card says i'm with the GOP! a freeking elephant!

Those numbers add up to around 300 million, which is roughly the US population. I'm assuming those are the current rough breakdown of age groups.

So, 20.4% of the population isn't even old enough to have a college degree yet.

And some of the 15-64 (the 15-20 year old portion of it) also is going to be too young.

And those 65 and older - a lot of those aren't going to have college educations because it wasn't as common in those days, they were in the military, etc. etc. The number of college degrees among 65+ year olds isn't really relevant to the discussion, because most are retired.

So that's like 35-40% of the population. Given that chunk of the total population, if 26% of the total population has a 4 year degree, that's pretty impressive.

Oh, a DRUMMER!! That explains it!

Comparing the population of India, assuming the 75K is accurate, that's equivalent to over 187,000 engineers in America. Second, India is over producing engineers requiring them to look outside of India for employment. And, third, India is playing catch-up, still, and would need more engineers per population, though less than they're creating, to accomplish that.

Parchment baby!

Sheepskin baby! Anthropologists are going to know about my degree in 1000 years. Yours will just be dust. ;)

I realize this is a outflyer, but what about folks like me who hold jobs that require masters or phds, but don't actually have a degree at all? Got my current job, it required a masters in educational technology, got it on experience alone. Freaked HR out to hire a 27 year old that had a documented 16 years experience programming, etc. tho :) And I do have a degree now, but it is "just" an AS in systems ...

Eh, I don't have one and do okay.

Though I am considering doing an easy Internet/Corespondence one to just meet the base requirement to add to my experience to apply for an MBA program.

There's also a lot of people who don't have degrees, but for whom that was not a negative. My folks, for instance, live in a very ritzy area (average house probably $3 million). It's amazing how many of their neighbors don't have college degrees, in fact, most don't. They are mostly "self-made" entrepreneurial types, who were trained in a trade, then went out on their own. Furniture maker, real estate, manufacturing widgets, etc. etc. etc. They learned it then ended up owning the company.

Where, on the other hand, there are millions of people with 4 year sociology degrees toiling away doing meaningless work for $30K per year.

many responded before I could! The figuers are from 2005. I don't think they have changed significantly. Check out this chart:
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1170184480.jpg

My buddy was just named CEO of a $20mm company at age 33 with not even an associates degree.

I also lack a degree of any kind. Big shock I know:D

I have a bunch of students who can program their eyes out but they could not advance without the paper. Stupid but that is the way it is.

hey i just gleamed the tidbit from yahoo. since i graduated in dec. '06............finally! long story involving mis-spent youth. my NAU graduating class numbered about 2000 people of various degrees.

dont know where the numbers came from, but sure was funny that the numbers were not higher, considering corp. america almost, if not, demanding a degree for majority of positions!

i think degrees have become what high school diplomas (not G.E. D.'s) were back when i graduated high school (1975). i can remember my h.s. counselor yelling at me to get my high school diploma or i would be sorry and never amount to nothing in his eyes. can remember when younger, applying for jobs and always being asked for proof of high school graduation. now as i have aged, everyone asks for documentation (legal form direct from college or univ,) proving you have a degree. propably the number one item any corporation checks on your resume for being legitimate, aside from doing background check, after you checked box "NO" your not an axe murderer or michael jacksons friend!

i can relate to many upstanding people w/wealth not having degrees also. while fighting tooth and nail one day doing algebra(my most hated dreaded subject), i asked a retired boeing test pilot here, who was involved with 737/747/757/767 projects as chief test pilot if he EVER USED ALGEBRA. his answer............"NO"! right then i knew i was studying something i wasnt going to use in my life after college.

seems a degree means a hell of alot to some.............and not a hell of alot to others nowadays.

EXPENSIVE DAMN SHEEPSKIN!

not having a degree is killing me...i am in school now to fix it. I have a technical degree in automotive repair, and will have an AAS in the same shortly, but i was smart and took heavy Psych at the same time as the educational requirements for the AAS. I am hoping to get out of the 2 year school with 2 degrees and then take a 4 year in Teaching or an automotive focused degree program. I have set a goal to have a Baccuerlate by 40. I am hoping that (by then) 23 years experience, 2 aas, 1 technical and a bac degree gets me a reall secure and paid job with a manufacturer...i am also trying to learn spanish AND German to sweeten it. I truly feel bad for people who did not go get a degree, i know that was the biggest mistake of my life....and i will pay for that for the rest of my life unless i get it or work for myself....(a very good possibility)

The horror.http://www.pelicanparts.com/support/.../pimpflash.gif

I like to think of it as "un-indoctrinated".:D

The NBA also will draft a kid right from HS - about a one in a billion shot.

Just caught Bill Gates on Jon Stewart. I wonder if he ever went on to get his degree. Honorary degrees not included.

Lebron James is doing all right:D

Maybe if this **** wasn't so expensive, more people would get degrees. Maybe...maybe not. I'm paying ~$20-22K to go to University of Kentucky, and that's not "unreasonable." I read a study in the newspaper over the summer that said college grads that have >$100,000 in debt just from UNDERGRAD is growing, growing, growing. Every year tuition goes up, at what seems like every school.

It seems like you need a degree to do ANYTHING these days, so it's odd more people don't have them.

As for rich people not having degrees...it's a long shot at best, and certainly nothing to bank on these days. Excluding athletes and other entertainers, the people with money have degrees.

$748 bucks at NAU for 3-credit class in-state tuition. this was just raised by 10% i think by college board. thats not including books/gas/food etc. obviously i wasnt living on campus, but the commute was a PITA!

i can remember my folks complaining about how much REGIS COLLEGE in denver,colorado was in 1975, for quality" beat you over the head w/a book jesuit education"...........$110 bucks a credit hour. or $330 bucks for a (3) credit class! thats 32 years of college tuition increases for a comparison btwn jesuit education and public education now.

your right if they made it more affordable to everyone, then more would attend. and quality of life would be better for most.

hardest thing i've done was going back at my advanced age, aside from dragging my elk out of a canyon a few years back!!!!!

When I was younger I worked for the prison system briefly, It was a cold slap in the face when I found out that the men in that prison were getting 4 yr degree for FREE. So, when they return (lol) to work outside the prison they could fit in to society. boy I should have gotten lock up. The joke was ......Yeah I graduated from Penn State oh I mean State penn.

Problem is the ex con also has a record that is likely more detrimental than a no degree position.

Education in India is FREE. You can get your PhD for no money out of pocket. Some countries invest in their people instead wars.

Just because U have a degree it doesn't mean you smart, just ask Lubby!

No degree here either and I do very well for myself.

When I worked for a big corporation in West Palm Beach I was reminded daily about my lack of a degree. This was usually done in one of the countless meetings I sat in with my degreed associates as we discussed into the ground how we were going to do something.

We spent more time in meetings talking about working on jobs than actually working. After 18 months of that crap I left and started my own business and never missed it.

We rarely have meetings here, as a matter of fact we had one meeting a week when we were really busy, it was on Friday afternoons at the local Ale house over beers and wings. We talked shop, took some notes, and played pool.

I have a 4 year degree with nearly 30 years experience on top of it. But I can't advance tothe research levels of my corporation because I ONLY have a baccalaureate.

You don't pay for a PhD in the states either.

Hay! I re-assemble that remake!