The kids are home from school this week. We're thinking unkind thoughts about everyone on vacation on some island right now. The cold wind is too painful to venture out much. We've been shopping, doing art projects, and cooking exotic soups. The kids have also been doing their video game crack.
I have been reading on the iPhone here and there. Some stuff that I came across:
"The college degree is becoming the new high school diploma: the new minimum requirement, albeit an expensive one, for getting even the lowest-level job." Read about the receptionist with a $100,000 for a degree in retail management.
People, DON'T DO THAT!
Megan McArdle responds.
Also, don't get a PhD. Great graphes and article by Jordan Weissman.
See, less than 40% have real jobs waiting for them when they graduate.
In the midst of all these sad stories, I think I am starting to see the return of conspicuous spending. Articles about $20,000 kitchen islands and tech scene assholes. What's up with that?
Apt. 11d 
I cried because I had no room for an island in my kitchen until I met a man who had no kitchen at all and $100k in student loans. He also may not have had any feet. It was hard to tell because he was seated with his legs under a table.
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Yes, we need to think about what’s up with that. In 2008, when the financial world collapsed, there was pain all around. This year, the stock market is up. If you had a million in the market, you have a 100k looking for a kitchen. Eventually the kitchen might pay a couple of contractors, who in turn find themselves making more.
But right now, I’m worrying that there is a big gulf, a non continuous function in well-being. If its a permanent trend, we have issues.
Also, I think some,of the spending (a bit of an upturn in the real estate market, potentially in stock, in the art market) is foreign oligarchs, who at best are profiting from the skewed power structure in their countries, and at worst are straight out money laundering.
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Your first two paragraphs suggest that maybe you don’t need the qualification of “foreign” before “oligarchs” in your final paragraph.
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I’m not sure about that chart, because it’s clearly labeled NSF–is it of science PhDs (people who tend to get National Science Foundation funding) or of PhDs across disciplines (funded by a National Science Foundation study, in other words)?
In at least some of the sciences, a postdoctoral position is considered necessary for a professorial job (why some people I know left the professor track, because they wished to settle down more), and pays better than most humanities/social-sciences postdocs. Postdoctoral positions in some lab sciences can last a long time (even a career, it seems) and seem to me at least to closer to “real jobs,” although jobs that do not provide the security and rewards of the t-t research scientist.
Also: “job”–does this include contract and adjuncting? Does this include leaving academia and working for Starbucks? That would push the number down further. (And why would “postdoc” not be considered a “job”? There’s a contract involved and a stipend. Is there a student-loan repayment exception for postdocs?)
This in no way invalidates the larger point, but is merely doubt about how to read this particular chart (and the specific figure of <40%).
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