The Elite Overproduction Hypothesis
The new knowledge economy created a new class of Americans: men and women with college degrees (at the very least), skilled with symbols and numbers, salaried professionals in information technology, scientific research, design, management consulting, the upper civil service, financial analysis, medicine, law, journalism, the arts, higher education
... See moreGeorge Packer • Last Best Hope: America in Crisis and Renewal
Overall, about 20 percent of US college graduates are considered overeducated for their current occupation, and average incomes for new college graduates have been in decline for more than a decade.
Martin Ford • Rise of the Robots: Technology and the Threat of a Jobless Future
So if the Elite Overproduction Hypothesis is broadly correct, how do we get out of this mess? If happiness equals reality minus expectations, simple math tells us that we basically have two options for pacifying our educated youth — improve reality, or reduce expectations.
Noah Smith • The Elite Overproduction Hypothesis
Elite students climb confidently until they reach a level of competition sufficiently intense to beat their dreams out of them. Higher education is the place where people who had big plans in high school get stuck in fierce rivalries with equally smart peers over conventional careers like management consulting and investment banking.
Peter Thiel, Blake Masters • Zero to One
indictments—that fewer U.S. adults are completing post-high school degrees; that the costs of attending college are rising faster than inflation; that employers report hiring college graduates unprepared for the workplace.3