US Small Business Choked for Growth

Normally, small business startups and hiring would already be leading the economy back to a cycle of growth and increasing employment. In the current prolonged recession, several factors are inhibiting the normal healthy rebound of small business.

In a speech [Monday], William Dudley, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, identified financial constraints for small businesses as a restraint on the pace of economic recovery. Specifically, he said:

"For small business borrowers, there are three problems. First, the fundamentals of their businesses have often deteriorated because of the length and severity of the recession—making many less creditworthy. Second, some sources of funding for small businesses—credit card borrowing and home equity loans—have dried up as banks have responded to rising credit losses in these areas by tightening credit standards. Third, small businesses have few alternative sources of funds. They are too small to borrow in the capital markets and the Small Business Administration programs are not large enough to accommodate more than a small fraction of the demand from this sector."

President Dudley's comments are even more relevant in the current recession if one considers the disproportionate effect the recession has had on very small businesses. _FinancialArmageddon

You must add the impact of minimum wage increases to the above constrictive forces. In addition, uncertainty over the nature of upcoming Obamacabre health care regulations, taxes, fines, etc. on top of a host of other uncertainties relating to Obama's indifferent attitudes toward small businesses and startups must give entrepreneurs and would-be businesspersons pause. The vague but ominous Obama energy policies are another large source of uncertainty thrown over the business and startup communities.

The economy needs the dynamism of small business and startups. Unfortunately, the Pimps and Skanks of government and media are doing almost everything in their power to remove all positive incentives for starting small businesses, while laying on the negative incentives with a super-sized trowel.

How Do You Like These "Future-Proof" Jobs?

Popular Mechanics presents the following list of 10 "Future-Proof" jobs. If you are looking for a first, second, or third career, you might consider one of them as a possible way to survive the Obama depression.

1. Undersea Welder

Wet welders work in offshore oil fields as deep as 400 feet, building and repairing undersea infrastructure......Arc welding underwater with electrodes carrying 185 amps might seem unwise, but deep-diving wet welders do it every day. They build and repair pipelines and oil platforms—in January 2009 there were 313 new bids worth $484 million in the western Gulf of Mexico alone. Dusty Harrison, placement director for a Florida school called the Commercial Diving Academy, says, “There’s no telling how much work there is,” thanks to a decade of hurricanes and a boom in oil exploration. During the Gulf ’s hurricane season, some welders work in West Africa and Asia.

How to Do It: Oil companies hire dive outfits with welders certified by the Association of Commercial Diving Educators. Schools such as the Commercial Diving Academy and New Jersey’s Divers Academy International have four- to five-month certification courses. Swimming ability and a high school diploma are prerequisites; scuba diving isn’t.

Earning Potential: Right out of school, you’ll pull in $17 to $20 an hour. “After two and a half or three years, that typically doubles,” Harrison says.

2. Zero-Energy Home Architect

Some houses now being built make as much energy as they consume. They rely on equipment such as solar cells to generate power, while using efficient design to keep consumption down. Michelle Kaufmann, an architect in Oakland, Calif., is bringing the zero-energy idea and other forms of sustainable design to prefab houses such as her mkLotus, a small, one-bedroom home. (Kaufmann worked for architecture legend Frank Gehry before founding her own firm in 2002.) Kermit Baker, an economist for the American Institute of Architects (AIA), says, “Sustainability and architecture are now intertwined.” In a recent AIA survey, architects reported that 47 percent of their clients in 2008 used green building elements. Despite the housing slump, Kaufmann says her 15-person staff is swamped: “We have more projects than ever before.”

How to Do It: Earn a master’s from one of the 61 U.S. architecture programs that offer classes with a green bent. (Yale has a joint degree in architecture and environmental management.)

Earning Potential: Nationally, staff architects earn about $45,000 to $100,000. Architects who own their firms can make much more.

3. Combined Heat and Power Mechanic
Jim Bondi is an old-school electrician who embraces new-school energy production. After eight years working on projects that included solar installations, he joined Pennsylvania-based E-Finity, designing combined heat and power (CHP) plants. A CHP unit saves energy by burning fuel to produce electricity and using the excess heat for climate control and producing hot water. “With the nation’s rising energy demand and the increase in environmental stewardship, CHP is an economic and environmental no-brainer,” Bondi says. The Department of Energy hopes the industry will grow enough to add a million workers by 2030.

How to Do It: CHP suppliers provide training. Electricians and mechanics with experience on jet and helicopter engines, which are similar to CHP turbines, find their skills are a natural fit.

Earning Potential: Salaries are $30,000 out of the gate; they top out at $75,000.

4. Energy Engineer
When the Coronado naval base in San Diego wanted to shrink its energy consumption, it turned to the consulting firm Tetra Tech, whose energy-efficiency staff has grown sixtyfold in the past decade. “The naval base is like a small city, with office buildings, a supermarket, bowling alleys,” says Linda Hunter, a Tetra Tech energy engineer who was brought in to boost efficiency on the base and its two aircraft carriers. Energy engineers may recommend new air-conditioning equipment or solar-powered streetlights, or they may design entire renewable-energy systems, such as harnessing methane from a landfill to generate electricity.

How to Do It: Earn a degree in chemical, mechanical, electrical or civil engineering—or a newer specialty called energy resources engineering. A Certified Energy Manager (CEM) certification is useful; it demands expertise in subjects like indoor air quality codes and standards, thermal energy storage systems and energy economics.

Earning Potential: Salaries start in the $50,000 range; with a master’s, you’ll get bumped up to around $70,000. Managers can pull in more than $100,000.

5. Digital Detective

Red teamers focused on digital security are hired to hack into computer systems to uncover vulnerabilities. The Department of Homeland Security plans to quadruple its cyber-security staff this year. Mark Mateski, a red teamer and the managing editor of Red Team Journal, says, “You’ll find a lot of red teamers working in war gaming and cyber security in the government-contracting world.” Even bigger growth may be coming in the private sector: “If your business’s survival depends on cyber security, you’re going to start looking for unconventional answers,” he says.

How to Do It: Programming skills are a must; a degree in computer science is helpful in landing a job. The Center for Cyber Defenders Program at New Mexico’s Sandia National Laboratories offers specific red-team training.

Earning Potential: $60,000 to start on the government and government-contract side; six-figure salaries are common in the private sector.

6. 3D Sports Tech

Many fans already say they get a better view of sports events watching TV than sitting near the action, but 3D cements the argument. At least, that’s the view of Steve Schklair, CEO of Burbank-based 3ality Digital Systems, a company specializing in 3D technology and production. “If you’ve got a camera down low next to the green and the golfer is putting uphill, you can actually see the roll of the green while he’s putting,” he says. Ray Hannisian, the company’s lead stereographer, uses software running complex sets of algorithms to fine-tune and synchronize the depth readings of as many as 10 cameras during events. The technology raised its profile during this year’s national college football championships, which 3ality shot and broadcast live to 63 movie theaters in January. Such broadcasts will soon be coming to a living room near you: American consumers have already bought 1.4 million 3D-compatible televisions, and every major electronics manufacturer is now producing such sets. Of course, the best-known 3D arena remains moviemaking. More than a dozen 3D movies are scheduled for release in 2009.

How to Do It: You can master 3D still photography on your own using a program like HumanEyes Capture 3D Software. Also, take classes in digital videography (art schools and university film programs offer them), then look for a job as a 2D cameraman. “With digital technology, you can learn a lot about 3D while you’re actually shooting,” Hannisian says.

Earning Potential: Salaries start at $50,000 and can go as high as $150,000 for television work. For the elite earners in 3D movie production, Schklair says, “There is no limit.”

7. Wind Explorer

Siting a wind farm takes engineering chops, anemometers, GPS skills and, sometimes, zinc oxide on your nose.

When civil and environmental engineer Mathias Craig arrived in Nicaragua in 2004, he found a stretch of Caribbean coastline where transportation consisted of horses and boats and there wasn’t a single light bulb. “It was like the Wild West 200 years ago,” he says. As founders of the nonprofit Blue Energy Group, Craig and his brother organized volunteers to build wind turbines to catch the Caribbean trade winds and supply several com-munities with electricity. Hugh Piggott, a Scotland-based wind-energy pioneer, has worked on similar projects in Zimbabwe, Peru and Sri Lanka. “One of the places wind energy is expanding most rapidly is the developing world,” he says. “The number of people in the world who don’t have utility power is actually increasing.” That’s because the population in many regions is growing faster than grid lines and new power plants can be constructed. Craig and his staff of 32 have already installed nine turbines in Nicaragua. They’ve also scouted sites in West Africa, and they’re in talks to expand into Honduras and Guatemala.

How to Do It: Texas Tech University’s Wind Science and Engineering Research Center offers a summer internship for undergrads and has one of the country’s few Ph.D. programs in the field. However, it’s possible to jump in without an advanced degree. Piggott teaches turbine-building seminars worldwide; Blue Energy has an apprenticeship program in Nicaragua.

Earning Potential: Nonprofit firms based in developing countries pay from $1000 to $4000 per month. Annual salaries in the U.S. currently range from $35,000 to $55,000.

8. Fabricator of Carbon-Fiber Spaceships and Planes

“We’re like the shipbuilders of the modern era,” Reuben Garcia says. As head composite fabricator at XCOR, an aerospace company in Mojave, Calif., Garcia is deeply engaged in the race to make ships capable of carrying tourists into space. Garcia and his team take the plans drawn by XCOR’s engineers and make them real, using lightweight carbon composites similar to the materials used everywhere from Formula One race cars to high-end fishing rods. Composite structures are built up layer by layer, and Garcia’s high-tech creations are shaped largely with such low-tech tools as squeegees filled with epoxy resin. XCOR, which plans to conduct test flights to space by 2011, is situated in a tiny town that has become a hotbed for spaceship and small-airplane construction. “You can walk into any of the 20 or so companies here and have a job in an hour,” says Jon Sharp, owner of Nemesis Air Racing, which builds racing planes.

How to Do It: Many companies will train newbies. However, community colleges can offer a head start with introductory courses in composite fabrication.

Earning Potential: Pay starts low but can climb to $20 per hour. Managers who go on to earn engineering degrees can make up to $100,000 a year.

9. Battery Engineer

Will Gardner was a freshly minted college graduate with a degree in mechanical engineering when he was hired by Duracell. “I had no idea what a battery company could want with a mechanical engineer,” Gardner says, but he was drawn to the field, which combines elements of electrical engineering, chemistry, materials science and, yes, mechanical engineering. “You need to know something about each of them in order to succeed,” he says. Today, Gardner leads a team that designs, builds and tests batteries for hybrid electric cars at A123 Systems, a fast-growing firm based in Watertown, Mass. A123’s clients include Chrysler, GM and automotive upstarts Think and Better Place, and the company’s staff has jumped from 150 to 2000 in the past three years. Ann Marie Sastry, who directs the University of Michigan’s master’s program in energy systems engineering, says, “The DNA of the automobile is changing, which means the composition of the workforce has to change.” Sastry also runs her own battery company, called Sakti3. “We’re hiring,” she says. “It’s a great time to be a battery guy.”

How to Do It: A bachelor’s in math, materials science or engineering is essential. Sastry’s program is very highly regarded: “Students are getting jobs even before they finish their studies,” she says.

Earning Potential: To start, $50,000 to $60,000; at the senior level, $95,000.

10. Independent Video-Game Designer

It took Kyle Gabler just four days to come up with the concept for his first video game, and, frankly, it didn’t seem like a blockbuster waiting to happen: The protagonists are gobs of goo. But in the growing world of independent game design, execution is key—and Gabler created a look that has drawn comparisons to filmmaker Tim Burton, supporting a story filled with intrigue and humor. The prototype became an indie hit, and in October 2008 Gabler launched the Nintendo Wii game World of Goo (above). In an era of sequels (a dozen Medal of Honor games, eight iterations of Grand Theft Auto), the industry needs fresh ideas—and supplying them has traditionally been a designer’s main job. But as Simon Carless, publisher of the industry website Gamasutra and a former lead designer, says, “Now designers also need practical skills. You need to be able to make the game.”

How to Do It: More than 200 schools offer game-design degrees, including the Art Institute of Portland, which graduates students with a B.S. in Visual and Game Programming. But consumer tech is so good now that you may be able to go it alone. “You can make stuff in your bedroom that’s as good as what people are making professionally,” Carless says. Art, music and coding skills are all critical. _PopularMechanics

The only problem with some of the green jobs coming into prominence is the fact that for every job created, approximately 2.3 conventional jobs are lost. It is a conundrum for Obama -- or it would be if he ever gave it some thought, understood what the word "conundrum" meant, and had the mental capacity to think beyond simplistic jingoism.

Anyway, there are a few job categories to consider for new job seekers. I am always on the lookout for lists of new things -- including new types of jobs. If you run across one, please let me know.

Strippers, Porn Stars, and Prostitutes: Women Coping in the Age of Obama

As a bartender and trainer at a national restaurant chain, Rebecca Brown earned a couple thousand dollars in a really good week. Now, as a dancer at Chicago’s Pink Monkey gentleman’s club, she makes almost that much in one good night. _Source

Obama has barely begun destroying the US economy, but already women are rushing to fill positions within the "recession proof fallback professions" of exotic dancing, porn video star, and various degrees of prostitution.

Employers across the adult entertainment industry say they’re seeing an influx of applications from women who, like Brown, are attracted by the promise of flexible schedules and fast cash. Many have college degrees and held white-collar jobs until the economy soured

As we begin to probe the depths of an Obama depression, basic human motivations and drives come to the forefront. As more respectable businesses find themselves unable to survive under the harsh economic conditions being created by the poor policies of today's incompetent governments, less respectable ways of making a living are being sought.

In this economy, “desperate measures are becoming far more acceptable,” said Jonathan Alpert, a New York City-based psychotherapist who’s had clients who worked in adult entertainment.

You will find this phenomenon anywhere the market economy is prevented from working by corrupt and overly meddlesome governments. The Obama reich qualifies on both counts.

Rhode Island’s Foxy Lady held a job fair Saturday, seeking to fill about 35 positions for dancers, masseuses, bartenders and bouncers. The Providence Journal reported that more than 150 job seekers showed up to apply for work at the strip club.

There are a number of risks to these professions. Men and women who get caught up in these and other popular entertainments too often become addicted to potent, expensive, and illicit drugs -- which can tip already complicated lives over the brink into chaos. In some situations, exposure to diseases such as hepatitis and HIV can add further risk to these grey and black market activities.

But these alternative professions are only a few of the ways that displaced and depressed workers are bypassing traditional employment. As in any depression, the global Obama depression is supporting the expansion of the black market economy across many sectors, in many countries -- rich and poor. Unfortunately, crime is yet another black market activity likely to expand under President Obama.

Thanks to Obama, we are seeing a dramatic expansion of all levels of government that will lead to an even greater contraction of the private sector. There will be fewer paths to wealth and financial security outside of government, other than the grey and black markets. This is just one part of making the US into yet another third world nation. Obama has many other parts covered as well.

Source for above quotes

Hope for the best, prepare for the worst.

Future Jobs: College Grads Need Not Apply

In spite of growing levels of underemployment for college graduates, almost every child has the message "you've got to go to college" drilled into her. But seventy percent of the jobs in the top ten largest growing occupations will not require a college education, according to the Carnegie Foundations Change Magazine.

...the story of the top 10 occupations with the largest (rather than fastest) growth in number of jobs is different. The BLS expects these occupations to grow by 4,600,000 jobs—23.4 percent of the total increase in jobs from 2004 to 2014—while the top 30 will increase by 8,833,000, or 47 percent of the total increase. Seventy percent of these occupations do not require college; 30 percent do....The jobs that require postsecondary education credentials total 29 percent for 2004 and will rise to 31 percent by 2014. This is consistent with the very gradual increase in educational requirements that we have seen over the last six decades....Thus, while jobs requiring advanced education might be expanding rapidly, they still accounted for too small a share of the workforce to affect the average level of education needed for all jobs.

...Fewer young college graduates have been able to obtain college labor market jobs, and their real wages and annual earnings have declined accordingly due to rising mal-employment. These young college graduates take jobs that displace their peers with lower levels of schooling."...

Change
Via Joanne Jacobs

Most workers in the foreseeable future will not need a college education. That does not mean they will be flipping burgers, or earning minimum wage. A growing population of the world's billionaires lack college degrees.

Most students appear to be focusing on jobs--working for someone else--life long employment. No surprise, since all the media can talk about is "jobs, jobs, jobs." Such jobs emphasis is 18th century thinking that belongs in the past. The focus in the 21st century should be upon assuming the mantle of personal responsibility as independent contractors. Government bureaucracies--firmly mired in the thinking of the past--are geared to "full employment" and enforce many job-related mandates for employers.

We will see a lot more "under-employed college graduates" as society's emphasis on the importance of a college education comes face to face with an economy that will mostly require "no college" or only "some college."

It is possible for many parents to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars for their child's education, only to find the child is prepared only for a minimum wage level job. More and more, college graduates are qualified only to point out the many "injustices" of the society they are belatedly cast out into--as grown-up children, psychological neotenates. Many of these grown-up children will never assume responsibility, because learning to do so was never part of their education. Binge drinking? Yes. Hooking up? Yes. Blaming everyone else for problems? Yes. Self-responsibility? Sorry, no, never.

While most of the professors at universities are growing fixed and fossilized in their disconnect from the actual state and needs of the real world around them, more youth--particularly women--are pinning their hopes on the favourable job prospects bestowed by a college degree. Unfortunately, they are choosing degrees that will not give them appreciable advantage over associate degree holders, or even high school graduates. More injustice? To them, apparently so.

Hovering in the background, out of focus, is the impact that the quickly evolving internet will have on the jobs/education picture. In many fields, emphasis will be on "certification" in particular skills and specialised knowledge. Such certifications can be quickly updated to meet the actual state of technology and innovation in a particular field. On the job training combined with "certifications" will assume an ever more important role. And ever more certifications will be obtained via internet and internet based schools and programs.

Even in traditional degree paths, more education will be provided by internet based off-campus providers, or via virtual campus. A worker's education can grow as his job develops. Consider it "flex-training" or "flex-education."

More on this very important topic later.

Employment Outlook Good for US Graduates

For recent university graduates in the US, employment prospects could not look much better.

"If you want a job and you're a college grad, you can get one," is the smart—only somewhat overstated—observation that Roy Krause, head of staffing company Spherion, just imparted to me over the phone. Indeed, college grads had just a 2 percent unemployment rate in June, according to new Labor Department data, vs. 3.5 percent for those with "some college," 4.1 percent for high school grads, and 6.7 percent for those who did not finish high school.

More good news came from the June income numbers: Real wages for workers—not managers—increased by 3.9 percent, year over year. Deflate by the core May inflation rate of 2.3 percent—the latest numbers available—and you get real wage growth of 1.6 percent. Not too shabby. Right now, Wall Street recession expectations are pretty low. "The threat of recession has abated, as job and income gains provide the wherewithal to support consumer spending," is the analysis of former Federal Reserve governor Lyle Gramley. In fact, the Big Money Crowd is more worried about China than U.S. housing as a source of future trouble.

Source

In reality, it is very possible for high school dropouts in the US to become millionaires within 20 years, if they use discipline and good sense. Of course, those are not attributes generally applied to high school dropouts. The sad truth is, however, that a high school dropout or graduate could easily achieve a higher paying job than many college/university graduates by learning a useful trade and traveling to where the high paying jobs are. In other words, in the US economy, being useful can easily be more important than having a lot of letters behind your name.

In fact, in a general atmosphere of academic lobotomy and psychological neoteny, the sooner a strong-minded and ambitious person strikes out on his/her own, the better. Parents should consider what they would want their children to know, should they step out into the real world at the age of 18 or 20, and begin teaching them when they are young.

National Academies of Science Report Recommends Forcing Women Against their Will

A recent report from the National Academies of Sciences (NAS) can find no "good" reason why women are deciding not to go into tenured university positions in upper level science, math, and engineering. The committee of "experts" nevertheless recommends broad, sweeping and massively expensive changes to the way that the US federal government, large foundations, and universities deal with the issue of women in the sciences.

A committee of experts looked at all the possible excuses -- biological differences in ability, hormonal influences, childrearing demands, and even differences in ambition -- and found no good explanation for why women are being "locked out".

Source.

Women have made astounding gains in education in North America, the committee admitted. But since women are not choosing to go into science and math PhD teaching positions in elite universities at the same rates as men, they should be forced to make other choices than they would choose for themselves, the report implies. If women with top level mathematics and scientific skills are making other career and life choices, such as private industry labs, think tanks, or government labs--then society needs to spend massive amounts of money to force them to change their minds.

Forty years ago, women made up only 3 percent of America's scientific and technical workers, but by 2003 they accounted for nearly one-fifth. In addition, women have earned more than half of the bachelor's degrees awarded in science and engineering since 2000. However, their representation on university and college faculties fails to reflect these gains.

Source.

Well, of course, if women have different goals for themselves than the goals that this particular NAS committee has for them, the women should be forced to change--there is no other conclusion to be drawn.

Women make up over 70% of psychologists with graduate degrees. Women are achieving parity (and greater) in most law schools and medical schools. Women make up almost 60% of recipients of bachelors degrees in North America, and since it takes time for the wave of women graduates to roll through higher education and university faculties, one can expect even greater gains in those areas for women. There is nothing that motivated women cannot accomplish in the free atmosphere of North America and Europe.

Yet, for political reasons, a NAS committee has recommended massive overhauls to the operation procedures for government funding, large foundation grants, and university policy, so that women can be favoured in science, math, and engineering--even if women by themselves would make other career and life choices.

There are some women who are clearly as good as the highest level of male scientists and mathematicians, and who should have the opportunity--if they choose--to go to the highest levels of those fields, within universities or any other system that employs scientists and mathematicians. Some of them are choosing to go into other areas of employment than tenured PhD university employment. This seems to distress Donna Shalala and other highly politicised members of the NAS committee.

This topic should enjoy an interesting discussion on the web. I see that Gene Expression blog already has posted on this report. Of course, anyone interested in the underlying science in this issue should read this La Griffe du Lion essay on women in science and this essay on women in mathematics.

This NAS report is an expensive "Ode to Cluelessness." Not so much on the part of the committee members, who clearly know what their own ambitious goals are, as on the part of anyone who takes it seriously.

Making Higher Education Relevant to the Real World: Neumont University

The U.S. has a big problem. The Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts it needs 135,000 new computer professionals each year. But between the dot-com crash and a misperception that all the good tech jobs are going overseas, fewer undergraduates have been majoring in computer science. U.S. universities are churning out only 49,000 grads a year. And many of those U.S. grads require additional training before they can function on the job.

Source.

Salt Lake City's Neumont University is a for-profit school for training software engineers and computer scientists. The emphasis is on providing what employers want in the real world. When a student leaves Neumont U., he is ready for employment at high wages, and top-ranked employers understand this very well.

At elite liberal arts colleges, the profs disdain practical skills and pontificate about theoretical topics suited to their academic journals. Not here. At Neumont students spend only 30% of their time on theory and 70% learning the newest technology, mostly working in groups on projects. That's the way complex software is written today, in groups. Source.

Even in technical courses of study such as Computer Science, professors in universities too often wander onto their own areas of personal interests, and neglect the teaching of some of the most important skills that employers need. University professors often express their indifference to the world of commerce in this way--and the students are the ones who pay the price.

Not surprisingly, the 250 students who have enrolled so far are a pragmatic and career driven bunch. Some have quit full-time jobs for the chance to gain new, higher-paid skills. Scott Baldwin, 28, a straight-A student in Neumont's first graduating class, left a secure job developing Web sites to spend two years at the school. After earning his degree, he got five job offers and opted to move his wife and two daughters to Austin, Tex. for a position at IBM. Source.

If schools are willing to orient their courses of study to more appropriately prepare students for the job marketplace, students will make the transition to steady employment much more readily.

Doxey [Neumont President and founder] aims foremost to please employers--not students, not parents and certainly not the educational establishment. Produce what business needs, he figures, and graduates will win good jobs, which will in turn attract more paying students.

He's onto something. The school's first batch of 27 graduates this past spring all had jobs waiting, with an average starting salary of $61,000--some 20% more than the average computer science grad and 50% more than DeVry University graduates' starting pay. After a year Neumont's graduates should be able to command $70,000 to $90,000, predicts Joshua Steimle, chief executive of Salt Lake City Web design firm MWI, which hired two grads. "Neumont students can jump right into projects," says Steimle. "It would be the first place I'd go to hire more developers." Source.

Serious students can achieve their degree at an accelerated pace at Neumont. Classes are run from 8 to 5, year round. Students can test out of the introductory classes, if they demonstrate the aptitude. Professors at Neumont are full time computer science professors with excellent backgrounds, including one from Microsoft Corp. Having professors with backgrounds in industry allows Neumont to focus its preparation specifically to computer industry bound graduates.

Eve Andersson, Neumont's academic head, predicts Neumont students will be better prepared when they land in corporate America than those produced by MIT. "Our guys may be their bosses," says Doxey. Forbes.

Eventually, more parents are going to start demanding that universities prepare their kids for the workplace, not the party place. A parent can easily mortgage a family's future on a top ranked university education for a child, then discover that the child has not been prepared for any job but minimum wage level entries. It happens every summer, this crashing despairing awareness of having made a bad choice, despite all the accolades society heaps upon the top schools.

Most universities today do more indoctrinating than educating. No wonder so many students seek escape in parties and binge drinking. Their expensive classroom experiences are not preparing them for a decent future, and many of them know it. But you cannot expect a student at that age to fully comprehend the implications of the monumental waste of his time and his parents' money. That is something the parents should have researched ahead of time.

Universities such as Neumont are merely specialised niche schools. But they are carefully targeted on the future of the marketplace, and how their graduates can help important employers. As more such niche colleges form, due to demand for efficacious education, is it too much to hope that mainstream education might wake up? Indoctrination into obsolete and counter-productive philosophies is a luxury that society cannot afford. Your students deserve better.

Update 7-16: Also see the post "Leapfrog University", for a brave proposal from scholars at the University of Minnesota to re-vamp a traditional university, to make it relevant.

Men: The Disposable Sex

Many of you have read this article in today's issue of The Economist. The article is slick and provocative, an excellent example of modern journalism. (it may be necessary to view a short advertisement before viewing the premium content)

....Girls get better grades at school than boys, and in most developed countries more women than men go to university. Women will thus be better equipped for the new jobs of the 21st century, in which brains count a lot more than brawn. In Britain far more women than men are now training to become doctors. And women are more likely to provide sound advice on investing their parents' nest egg: surveys show that women consistently achieve higher financial returns than men do.

Furthermore, the increase in female employment in the rich world has been the main driving force of growth in the past couple of decades. Those women have contributed more to global GDP growth than have either new technology or the new giants, China and India.... It used to be said that women must do twice as well as men to be thought half as good. Luckily that is not so difficult. Source.

It is fascinating to contemplate the continuing need for strong "affirmative action" programs for women in academia and the workplace, in the face of such obvious female superiority of achievement. But I digress.

I doubt if many readers here are privy to the triple ultra premium content of The Economist. Probably few would even know where to find it. Fortunately, we at Al Fin read all, so that you do not have to. Here are excerpts from the 3UPC edition of The Economist:

...In fact, the only reason men are tolerated at all, is that women scientists have not quite perfected cloning. There is still a need for human sperm, and for now, only human male testicles are capable of reliably supplying that need. Currently there are projects supported by UNESCO and the EU, which will allow scientists to create sperm-producing human testicles in the laboratory from male embryos....

....Some male scientists have suggested that male humans are overrepresented on the high end of cognitive ability, particularly in math and spatial abilities. Fortunately, Liz Spelke has totally refuted that bit of obsolete patriarchal folk psychology. Once the effects of millenia of prejudice are allowed to wear off, women will outperform men in math and spatial abilities, just as they have in all the other fields of human endeavor....

....In summary, men are a total waste of resources, if not for sperm. It should be a top priority to, in the short term, create alternate sources of sperm. In the intermediate term, the perfection of cloning will allow the total elimination of any need for men at all--in the long term.

There you have it, the master plan. I would like to be able to provide links, but the triple ultra premium content is quadruple-encrypted, preventing the use of ordinary links. I cannot help but think back to Al Fin's fascinating interview with two of the leading members of the movement referred to in the 3UPC article above.

For more detailed information on why men have become the disposable sex, consult Warren Farrel, Lionel Tiger, and Cristina Hoff Sommers.