Oct

2011

Written by T. Smith—“Does Education Really Matter?”

Today, while surfing through one of the many social networking media sites I came across a photo. The photo was of a homeless man holding a cardboard sign. Now many would ask what makes this man any different from the thousands of homeless people that are scattered throughout the United States. This man sign read “PhD… and I will work for food…” When we think of the homeless epidemic in America most of us fail to realize that there are some highly educated people who have fallen victim to homelessness.

Being well educated no longer guarantees that you will have a bright and successful future. A college degree or degrees today means that you decided to take a step above the rest and join the other thousands of individuals who decided to go to college to have the extra edge on those who did not. Yesterday’s elite has become toady’s middle class, working poor and plain impoverished. The richest of the rich have remained just that. Meanwhile, the middle class has become the working poor and the working poor have become even poorer.

Our economy is and has been at a horrific state for sometime with a steady incline in the unemployment rate. Since April of 2011 the unemployment rate has remained around 9.0% and was at 9.10% for the month of September (Legislatures, 2011). 44.6% of individuals are considered long term unemployed, 14 million idled and 6.2 million people have been jobless for more than 27weeks (Legislatures, 2011).

See Unemployment Chart Below↓

National Unemployment Rates, 2008 - 2011

Jan. Feb. Mar. April May June July Aug. Sept. Oct. Nov. Dec. 2011 9.0 8.9 8.8 9.0 9.1 9.2 9.1 9.1 9.1 2010 9.7 9.7 9.7 9.9 9.7 9.5 9.5 9.6 9.6 9.6 9.8 9.4 2009 7.6 8.1 8.5 8.9 9.4 9.5 9.4 9.7 9.8 10.2 10.0 10.0 2008 4.9 4.8 5.1 5.0 5.5 5.6 5.8 6.2 6.2 6.6 6.8 7.2

Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics

I must say I can definitely relate to the gentleman holding the sign. I may not be homeless in the same sense but I can strongly relate to the struggle of poverty. I have learned in the past five years that it is not what you know as much as who you know. I have indebted myself to education and I often ask myself why? I ask because I work in a position where my talents are unappreciated and overlooked only benefiting the success of others who have no intentions on helping to guide me professionally but to put me on hold in order to help them look flawless professionally. I have grown tired of hearing from employers that I am over qualified or need more experience. I have often wondered to myself if all employers have that frame of thinking where am I suppose to gain this additional experience?

References:

Legislatures, N. C. (2011, October 7th). National Unemployment Summary. Retrieved October 10th, 2011, from ncsl.org: http://www.ncsl.org/?tabid=13307

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