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americus 2.0 · 02-10-2016, 04:11 PM

....to high paying jobs? Story I suggest reading the article in it's entirety. These are just a few paragraphs that stood out to me.

"Ask a group of high school seniors what they’re sick of being asked about college, and they’ll likely share some variation of the question “What are you going to major in?” Adults usually follow up the query one of two ways: They tell students to study a subject that leads to a high-paying job—after all, student loans don’t pay themselves—or they say money isn’t everything and that students should major in fields that appeal to their passions. Hello, English and psychology."



But according to a new report from the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce, black students are more likely to choose majors that don’t lead to lucrative careers—and it may not always be a matter of personal choice."........



"Not choosing a STEM major can have a significant economic impact on a person’s life. “African Americans who earned a Bachelor’s degree in a STEM related major, such as architecture or engineering, can earn as much as 50 percent more than African Americans who earned a Bachelor’s degree in art or psychology and social work,” wrote the report’s authors.

Instead, black students are more likely to major in “intellectual and caring” fields. They gravitate toward early childhood education and social work, “where low incomes do not reflect their years of higher education,” said the report."



Okay, I either don't get what they're saying or I do and just don't see it. These are a couple of the paragraphs that stuck out to me from the whole article. I know not everyone gets the education they want due to lack of funds, lack of educational ability, lack of motivation, etc. I also know that many people choose a field based on either what they want to do or what is most prevalent in their city/town.



Example, where I live there are countless opportunities for jobs in the medical field; specifically nursing, medical assistants, pharmacy techs, etc. It's one reason why I chose Medical Office Assistant and Medical Billing and Coding as my fields of study because I know between the two of them I have a 99% chance of getting employed after I graduate and become certified. Are they what I saw myself as being when I was younger? No, I wanted to be a nurse but no matter how much tutoring I received I just couldn't get through even the most basic math a nursing degree requires. My brain simply doesn't compute it.



Anyway, if the black folks they're talking about prefer to be teachers or work in social services, who cares? And if their wages aren't reflective of their degrees that's not on the colleges nor the graduates, that's on the fact that those jobs are paid with tax dollars which are always lower pay than their private sector counterparts. In my opinion, outside of firefighter/EMT's, police officers and our troops, there is no more a selfless act than to want to teach children or work in a field where they are able to help children who are compromised in some way. Why on earth would these be considered a less than any other job or career out there? Because the wages don't reflect the degree? I don't get it. Plus, as thankless as those jobs are these days why would you go into them if you don't have a passion for it?



There are plenty of white teachers and social workers whose wages don't reflect their degrees either. So why can't this be about that issue instead of it being about why black students aren't choosing majors leading to higher paying jobs? It's not a black issue, it's an American issue. I can assure you from personal experience we can't always choose what we want, sometimes we do what we can with what we've got.



I did read the whole article so I know it talks about possible inequality issues and I totally understand that, but people who are smart enough for those STEM jobs they were talking about generally aren't going to be deterred by mindless idiots who tend toward race issues. At my permanent duty station I was a white female in the Army with a black male platoon sergeant who didn't agree with women being in the military and didn't care for white folks. And I was the only white female in the platoon so I know what it is to deal with mindless idiots with gender and race issues in a workplace, but I refused to be bullied by his behavior.



If I'm missing something please enlighten me.