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Performance ReviewTo the Editor, Regarding Michael Schreiber's "Workless Stiff" (Tucson Weekly, December 25 ): It was interesting to read the lament of one who decided on a course of study and now expects the world to fall in around him and pay him to do whatever he most enjoys. Schreiber has discovered that simply studying Rosseau does not pay the rent. It also does not build the roads, maintain the engines, or keep the airplanes in the air.
Having decided technical jobs are below his own intellectual standards, he suggest that the economy should magically reform itself to suit his wants. I should not need to point out that the industries which create those unattractive technical jobs, which he would have no part of, also provide the tax base which funds the university that provided him with so many new and interesting insights which were rewarding for him. Do you now expect those industries to subsidize your continued personal reward system after graduation? If what he has learned is so important to the community, it's up to him to use what he knows to benefit the community, if that is his goal. It's not the obligation of society to use his education in a way that's most profitable for him. It has already provided the means for the education he wanted. --Dewaine McBride To the Editor, I can't help but suspect that I'm participating in some sort of hoax by commenting on Michael Schreiber's "Workless Stiff" (Tucson Weekly, December 25). His complaints reveal an attitude so stereotypical that, were I to describe it to someone unfamiliar with his article, I would doubtless stand criticized of erecting a straw man, the better to easily incinerate. On the other hand, Schreiber makes a few good points, and raises salient issues concerning education and employment. Perhaps the laugh is on me for taking this article seriously, but I'll take that chance. To paraphrase, Schreiber has just moved to Tucson, and is disappointed that he's been unable to land a good job in the field of his choice, in the location of his choice. He's been a good boy, working hard and getting that sheepskin, and can't understand his betrayal by the economy, and by Tucson in particular. In his search for answers, he indicts his undergraduate college education for not providing him with the skills for the jobs of tomorrow, praises technical schools with which he shows little sign of familiarity, and supports the GTEC "Field of Dreams" line that if only "we" (whoever that is) endow the local work force (also "us," I suspect) with those jobs-of-tomorrow skills, the employers will come.
Undergraduate education today at private and, overwhelmingly, at public colleges, is, in effect, technical school, at least when it's not reduced to remediating the failures of primary and secondary education. The resulting confusion over the mission of college renders its ability to satisfy anyone haphazard, but the confluence of the demand by students to cloak their apprenticeships in the prestige of an anachronistic academic aristocracy and the need of colleges to preserve enrollment and funding levels ensures its continuation. "We" would likely benefit should Schreiber's prediction that employment training in the future will not involve college prove prescient. Ambitious youth headed for the job market would not be burdened with Rousseau, and universities could return to a focused, academic mission, shrinking rapidly in the process. I won't even raise the issue of sports. Schreiber seems crestfallen that there is no coordinated plan in America, or at least in Tucson, to ensure that people are provided with the appropriate skills for employment market success, and, conversely, that good jobs are made available to all, in the fields and locations of their choice. Certainly, if he gets that college degree, he should be able to get that job! Yes, he is naive. No such plan, or planning agency, exists, nor would the existence of one with remotely sufficient powers be acceptable to most Americans. In its absence, there are no guarantees, and even its presence may not provide them. At best, your efforts may improve your chances of getting the job you desire. Imagine how such a coordinated plan might work. First, the planner accurately forecasts the quality and quantity of future jobs, a daunting undertaking, or constrains economic change sufficiently to obtain equivalent results ("No, you can't expand or change products at Hughes, I mean Raytheon; we haven't planned for it."). Next, suitable training programs are designed, and the appropriate number of students are routed through the programs.) Under such a regime, Schreiber's disappointment would likely be moved back from his entry to the labor market to his entry to college or trade school, where constraints of the plan might not even allow him to enroll in the field of his choice. This might be more humane, but it's doubtful it would sit well with Americans accustomed to choice in such matters. Early in President Clinton's first term, Labor Secretary Reich was also enamored of preparing youth, as well as welfare recipients, for those jobs of the future. Unfortunately, no one knows what they will be, or how many. Limitations of economic statistics and understanding render knowledge of the character and quantity of even the jobs of the present vague at best. The best most institutions can do is prepare people for the jobs of the recent past. This scenario is exacerbated by the inevitable lead time required to train people for any job. So, how does the future happen? How are jobs filled in the unknown territory of tomorrow? Simple, if ethically unsatisfying--people hustle, improvise, make do, modify their aspirations. Ambitious young folks especially are faced with tradeoffs among such factors as field of choice, location, pay and job availability. If you insist on that field of choice, be ready to relocate and wait for your opportunity. If you are committed to a place, be ready to compromise on field and pay. Finally, Tucson is a very pleasant, desirable place. Experienced, well-trained people, as well as recent college grads, crowd in here from all over the United States, perhaps the world. You'll be competing with them for jobs, Mr. Schreiber. If you're really insistent on that good job in your field of choice, read the national want ads. I hear they're hiring psychologists in New Jersey. --Jim Foley We Want Letters! Thrilled by our brilliant insights? Sick of our mean-spirited attacks? Need to make something perfectly clear? Write: tucsonweekly@tucsonweekly.com
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If there are long-term benefits that come with a liberal arts
education like the one he has indulged in, it's up to him to reap
those benefits. He may have learned things that are personally
significant, and have thereby enjoyed some of the benefits of
living in a taxed, prosperous society. But he cannot continue
to demand that whatever is personally significant be profitable
as well; laws of supply and demand work the other way around.
Schreiber's indictment of undergraduate liberal arts education
is on target, but not for the reasons he suggests. True liberal
arts education, as opposed to preparation and certification of
youth for employment, is nearly lost in today's colleges, and
was never a realistic option for more than a small affluent minority.
Schreiber is right to sigh about his inability to afford such
a luxury.