SteveOH

In the Wall Street Journal‘s (7/17, Ip) Careers column, Greg Ip writes, “A four-year college degree, seen for generations as a ticket to a better life, is no longer enough to guarantee a steadily rising paycheck.” Since “the economic expansion that began in 2001 and now appears to be ending, the inflation-adjusted wages of the majority of U.S. workers didn’t grow, even among those who went to college.” According to the “government’s statistical snapshots,…the typical weekly salary of a worker with a bachelor’s degree, adjusted for inflation, didn’t rise last year from 2006 and was 1.7 percent below the 2001 level.” Ip explains that “[c]ollege-educated workers are more plentiful, more commoditized, and more subject to…downsizings.” Employers seek workers with skills that are “more narrow, more abstract, and less easily learned in college.” Also, “today’s college graduates are far more likely to be competing against educated immigrants and educated workers employed overseas.” Ip concludes, “In short, a college degree is often necessary, but not sufficient, to get a paycheck that beats inflation.”