Privately educated still take most top jobs

Although, this article is highlighting a report on British education system & the resultant employment prospects from the private institutions of that education system, this can easily be extended to everywhere around the world.

Private schools, colleges, & universities in US & Canada are similarly regarded as producing highly talented individuals, who then are employed in top jobs. Although, there are no private universities in Canada, yet, but the cost of education in public universities is skyrocketing, & obtaining that education is becoming a luxury for many. The pricier the degree, the more respect it earns from the industry.

It's the same case in developing countries, like Nigeria, South Africa, Brazil, India, Pakistan, etc. Private education system has merely become the profit-making tool for a few industrialists. Public education system has been eroded or the industry sector doesn't favour the graduates of those. Graduates of private education system are highly regarded in the industry, & even there, the more expensive the degree (i.e. IBA & LUMS), the more respect the grad earns, & hence, obtaining that top spot in the industry becomes that much easier.

Of course, this disparity will continue on, even if the private education system starts taking in students on the basis of merit. The reason being that the graduates of these top private schools have strong alumni networks in the top tiers of industry, who pull their fellow graduates up, while leaving behind the graduates of public education system. This "networking" will continue on. Coupled this networking issue in the developed world with the not-so-strong financial situation of the immigrants there, & you can see that immigrants & their children do not make it to the top tiers of the industry in the developed world.

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https://www.rt.com/uk/333491-private-education-top-jobs/

Individuals educated at private schools continue to land the majority of top jobs in leading fields, including law, politics, journalism and the arts ... .

Results published by the Sutton Trust ... show that while the previous decade has shown “small signs” of narrowing inequality levels, often more than 70% of top jobs are given to those who were privately educated.

Only 7% of British youngsters attend private school, but the study showed that 74% of judges and 71% of high ranking military officers attended fee-paying schools.

In journalism, 51% of top print writers were privately educated, as well as 61% of doctors.

Respectively, only 12% of military chiefs were educated in comprehensive schools, and 22% of doctors attended grammar schools. Only one-fifth of leading journalists had a state education.

In politics the gap has narrowed, the report found, with 32% of MPs having attended a private school. But when examining the Tory cabinet, some 50% of the ministers went to independent schools, compared to 13% in Labour’s shadow cabinet.

The report also examined the prevalence of Oxford and Cambridge universities among top ranking positions, and found that alumni from the famous academic institutions were more likely to take high positions.

In law, Oxbridge graduates make up 74% of the top positions, with 54% of journalists having also attended the two universities.

Some 47% of the Conservative cabinet also attended Oxford or Cambridge, more than 10% higher than the shadow cabinet, which features 32% Oxbridge graduates.

The arts is also not exempt from the privately educated/Oxbridge bubble, with award-winning actors and actresses 50% more likely to have had a private education than pop stars. A total of 42% of BAFTA winners were awarded to fee-paying school attendees.

Sir Peter Lampl, chair of the Sutton Trust, said the report showed a need for more social mobility.

“Our research shows that your chances of reaching the top in so many areas of British life are very much greater if you went to an independent school.

“As well as academic achievement, an independent education tends to develop essential skills such as confidence, articulacy and teamwork, which are vital to career success.

“The key to improving social mobility at the top is to open up independent schools to all pupils based on merit not money... as well as support for highly able students in state schools.”

I am an adjunct professor who teaches 5 classes. I earn less than a pet-sitter

Not surprised at reading this article. But I am indeed sad at what is happening to our world. The world is unfair but it is just getting to an absurdly low point. Education is becoming meaningless in this modern world. Educated people who are without any influential networks are being used as mere slaves; jobs with low pay & without much benefits, if any.

People who are making six-figures or even millions are doing it by either exploiting others or themselves. All of the rich people in the modern world have become rich by trampling the basic human dignity, for example, by paying the federally-mandated minimum wages, which are themselves quite low. Some others are making money by exploiting narcissistic trends in social media or taking off their clothes in front of the camera. For example, some gamers, fashion & media vbloggers, Miley Cyrus, the Kardashian clan, most, if not all, rappers & hip hop artists, & of course, even the porn stars.

People who are working hard to teach & build the next generation are being treated like mere pawns. What message is being shown to the young minds of next generation? That it is better to go in sales (where one doesn't really need a relevant education & just be good in hustling or lying with a straight face), start making own videos for social media on completely inane topics, start twerking & dancing in front of millions, & of course, porn industry is another great option, too.

What kind of society are we expecting when the teacher of the next generation is being paid less than the cashier or grocery bagger at your local grocery store? After all, a simple cost-benefit analysis would lay the facts bare that just graduating secondary school is far better, since it's free (at least in North America, Europe, & some Asian countries) & that young kid won't even have to waste time, money (thousands of $$$ in most cases) in university, & his/her effort, to receive minimum wages, or perhaps, even less.

Frankly, why the world keeps shouting that education is important for everyone. It is indeed important, when the educated person is treated the way he/she deserves to be treated. It is indeed important in a meritocracy. But that's not the world we are living in right now. Grads are unemployed & burdened with student loans. Whereas, people who didn't go to university, but are good in selling (whatever they are selling) are swimming in cash.

Then, how can we expect this modern world to be any better than the world of yore? Then, how can we expect any kind of fairness in this world when the people with whom we are dealing got where they are by "selling" themselves, their morals, & their ethics?
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http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jun/22/adjunct-professor-earn-less-than-pet-sitter

Like most university teachers today, I am a low-paid contract worker. Now & then, a friend will ask: “Have you tried dog-walking on the side?” I have. Pet care, I can reveal, takes massive attention, energy & driving time. I’m friends with a full-time, professionally employed pet-sitter who’s done it for years, never topping $26,000 annually & never receiving health or other benefits.

The reason I field such questions is that, as an adjunct professor, whether teaching undergraduate or law-school courses, I make much less than a pet-sitter earns. This year I’m teaching five classes (15 credit hours, roughly comparable to the teaching loads of some tenure-track law or business school instructors). At $3,000 per course, I’ll pull in $15,000 for the year. I work year-round, 20 to 30 hours weekly – teaching, developing courses & drafting syllabi, offering academic advice, recommendation letters & course extensions for students who need them. ...

I receive no benefits, no office, no phone or stipend for the basic communication demands of teaching. I keep constant tabs on the media I use in my classes; if I exhaust my own 10GB monthly data plan early, I lose vital time for online discussions with my students. This, although the university requires my students to engage in discussions about legal issues & ethics six days a week, & I must guide as well as grade these discussions.

Three of my Philadelphia-area friends are adjuncts with doctorate degrees. One keeps moving to other states for temporary teaching posts. The others teach at multiple sites to keep afloat financially – one at no less than seven colleges & universities.

Having heard all my life about solid “government job” benefits, I figured I might have more stability, & still be able to handle teaching, if I worked for the Post Office. I started carrying mail in early January. As a City Carrier Assistant, I earned less pay than regular postal carriers do, though I did more than “assist”: my job was to handle absentee carriers’ routes. I had no medical insurance, no sick leave allowance & had to agree to work as much as managers deemed necessary for 360 consecutive days (whereupon I could sign up for a second 360-day contract, with no promise that it would bring me any closer to a permanent job offer). I worked on Sundays too, under the US Postal Service’s contract with Amazon.com. With human flaws – I fell on ice more than once – I was no match for the drones Amazon intends to deploy. After 2 months on the job, which was long enough to develop a lifetime fear of Rottweilers, I was behind in my university work. I turned in my cap.
In late March, I started a retail job. It offers real days off, & I expect to be eligible for health & dental benefits soon.

Last week, a friend came in to shop, saw me, & exclaimed, loud enough for all to hear: “What are you doing here?” Friends who know I hold two law degrees & teach at a university can’t fathom that my teaching doesn’t cover rent. Some writers have discussed adjuncts waiting tables or bagging groceries alongside their students as though it’s the ultimate degradation. I see things differently. I’m trained by the people who deliver parcels, serve meals & bag groceries & who might, any day, apply to take my courses. I am their equal, & I know it at a level most established faculty members do not.

Faculty members do not even interact with each other as equals. Most adjuncts aren’t included in regular faculty meetings, let alone conferences where ideas are exchanged & explored. A concept called the inclusive fees campaign seeks to make conferences affordable for adjuncts. (It focuses on PhDs, but could encompass teachers whose positions require law degrees or other alternative qualifications.) “Inclusivity” for a systematically exploited group is only a patch. But it’s good to see established professors challenged to acknowledge contingent workers, who now comprise the preponderance of the faculty community. Yes, of the 1.2 million instructional staff appointments in US higher education, 76% – more than 900,000 – are now contingent.

We are working for institutions that claim to open doors to career opportunities even as they etch contingency into their hiring practices. The significance of the inclusive fees campaign lies in its implicit question: how will the schools hear our voices over the silence of the tenured?

Even more daunting than the dearth of dollars is the fragmentation of the adjunct’s time. Recently, an editor at the University of Oregon School of Law asked if I’d be a conference panelist. Can I travel, yet still clock enough hours at my second job to stay above the threshold for health insurance?

Every day I live two people’s lives, & it’s fatiguing. Every day I need more time with students while being pulled away from them.

The best that could come of the adjunct crisis is a teaching community broadly committed to the civility & inclusivity we’ve been missing. This could lead to a new kind of education, based not on ranking, not on status, but on genuine guidance for living with decency & respect on this planet.

A conference on this is well overdue – & I don’t want to miss it while watching the time clock.

How the 'poshness test' is denying working-class people top jobs

A few months ago, I blogged about how universities in US are laying out the red carpet for children of rich parents. That is skewing the education paradigm in favour of the rich. Well, this news from the UK is highlighting how the social favouritism for the rich doesn't stop at the school but continues on to working lives.

Now, this news may surprise that lot in the world, who think that there is merit & fairness in the Western world. In the Western world, most jobs, & definitely the good ones, are only available through the "power of Networking." Of course, employees of certain socio-economic background keep similar friends, & hence, when the boss says that a vacancy is coming up in a department (marketing, finance, human resources etc.), employees tell their friends (who are like them) about that vacancy.

Eventually, people of a certain socio-economic background end up in the same company. Promotions take place from that employee pool. And then, those people hire the same; other people in their own image. After all, it's just human psychology that we like other people who seem similar to us; in values, in finances, in habits, in education etc.

So, of course, the good jobs in the top firms will go to the people who are of a certain "posh" class. It doesn't matter what education or how good a person was in school, anymore; it all comes down to who you are friends with, nowadays. This is the case everywhere around the world.

At the end of the day, the so-called "modern" society is going back to the days of dark ages, when the few select elites of the society used to have everything in the society working for them; from politics to finances to education and work for their kids.
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http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/poshness-test-is-the-new-glass-ceiling-lack-of-wealthy-background-denies-working-class-people-top-10319541.html

Thousands of working-class people are being denied jobs at top firms, as they effectively need to pass a “poshness test” to join elite employers, according to the official body set up by the Government to promote social mobility.

Executives are more likely to judge potential recruits by how they speak than by how well they might do the job, research by Alan Milburn’s Social Mobility & Child Poverty Commission found.

Its review shows that more than two-thirds of the job vacancies in elite legal & City firms are filled by university graduates who have been through private or grammar schools. By comparison, nearly 90% of schoolchildren have a comprehensive education, compared to just 7% attending fee-paying schools & 4% going to selective grammar schools.

Discrimination comes about because the managers who conduct job interviews do not like working-class accents, the commission reported, but are impressed by young people who have travelled widely, which naturally favours those from well-off families.

One employer frankly admitted his firm’s recruitment practices were loaded against young working-class applicants. But, he asked: “How much mud do I have to sift through in that population to find that diamond?”

Even when a working-class youth is on first rung of the ladder, he or she is likely to be passed over for promotion because of “the tendency of more senior professionals to promote in their own image & thus ‘misrecognise’ merit,” the commission said.

“This research shows that young people with working-class backgrounds are being systematically locked out of top jobs,” said Mr. Milburn, the former Labour Cabinet minister who chairs the commission. “Elite firms seem to require applicants to pass a ‘poshness test’ to gain entry. Inevitably that ends up excluding youngsters who have the right sort of grades & abilities but whose parents do not have the right sort of bank balances.

“Thankfully, some of our country’s leading firms are making a big commitment to recruit the brightest & best, regardless of background. They should be applauded. But for the rest this is a ‘wake up & smell the coffee’ moment. “In some top law firms, trainees are more than 5 times likely to have attended a fee-paying school than the population as a whole. They are denying themselves talent, stymieing young people’s social mobility & fuelling the social divide that bedevils Britain. ”

The “poshness test” is one way in which Britain’s social divide is widening, despite the rise in the number of professional jobs, which is expected to increase by 2 million in the next 5 years.

Research has previously shown that graduates whose parents can support them while they do unpaid work have a marked advantage, because almost a third of graduates recruited for full-time jobs in the top firms have already worked for them, usually as unpaid interns. It has also been found that most major firms tend to recruit graduates from just 19 universities.

The commission, which advises the government on social mobility, has examined the recruiting history of 13 elite firms employing 45,000 of Britain’s highest paid professionals.

They concluded that the recruiting practices are now so skewed in favour of “poshness” that many of the firms’ own senior executives would have not been hired under the criteria now used.

Between 60% & 70% of job offers made by the leading accountancy firms are to graduates of the 24 leading universities that make up the Russell Group.
...

But on a positive note, some firms have acknowledged that A-level results are not always a good indicator of performance, & have stopped taking them into account. In one firm that was studied, more than 10% of recruits would have failed if they had been judged on their school results.

Dr. Louise Ashley, of Royal Holloway, University of London, who led the research, urged firms to recruit from a wider range of applicants, & make sure that those from “diverse” backgrounds were not at a disadvantage. “Selection processes which advantage students from more privileged backgrounds remain firmly in place,” she said.

Congratulations, Class of 2015. You're the Most Indebted Ever (For Now)

As I've blogged previously on how education keeps getting more & more expensive to the point that a kid from a middle class or lower (depends how you define "middle class") has to take out large loans to have any chance of completing his/her education, I won't say much in this one. Rich kids don't have any problems in gaining education, assuming that they are actually studying in colleges / universities & not spending time in multimillion $$$ gyms, spas, & dorms, real estate developers are building for them.

Education & its related industries (e.g. financial services, real estate developers, admission services etc.) have become a very profitable businesses on their own. Education is peddled as a must to the kids today, if they want a better job & life in general. Even though, that's not the case, since, it's the age of networking. The stronger & influential your network, you are going to climb the corporate ladder much more easily & quickly. Merit still has a place but not as much as it used to be, say, even a decade ago.

Governments & other organizations will always point to surveys saying how unemployment & salary levels are different among high-school & post-secondary graduates, but what they fail to show is that how those graduates got those jobs in the first place. Most graduates are heavily encouraged to use their own networks to secure jobs & the better your network, the better the job (better = influential).

As the market insiders are constantly claiming now that the next wave of insolvencies are not going to be in housing loans, but in student loans, since good-paying jobs are becoming scarce but education keeps getting more expensive. So students are graduating with bigger & bigger loans without the comparable salaries to pay these loans as quickly as they can, so they can continue on with their lives.

I am definitely not suggesting that children / people should not get more education. No, education is definitely important. But, the society should not be fed the lie that more education will get you a better paying job, since that's not the case. That would be the case, if jobs were based on merit, & not on networks. But, that's not how jobs are secured, nowadays. Expectations should be straightened out in the first place that "people, you should not expect better paying jobs & a secure life with more education."
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http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2015/05/08/congratulations-class-of-2015-youre-the-most-indebted-ever-for-now/

The class of 2015 is reaching new heights, though perhaps not the way it had hoped.

College graduates this year are leaving school as the most indebted class ever, a title they’ll hold exclusively for all of about 12 months if current trends hold.

The average class of 2015 graduate with student-loan debt will have to pay back a little more than $35,000, according to an analysis of government data by Mark Kantrowitz, publisher at Edvisors, a group of websites about planning & paying for college. Even adjusted for inflation, that’s still more than twice the amount borrowers had to pay back two decades earlier.

Not only is average debt rising, but more students are taking out loans to finance secondary education. Almost 71% of bachelor’s degree recipients will graduate with a student loan, compared with less than half two decades ago & about 64% 10 years ago.

“It’s unfortunate that college costs are going up & the student aid, the grants, are not going up at the same rate on a per student basis,” Mr. Kantrowitz said. “College is becoming less & less affordable, though it’s still just as necessary.”

Indeed, separate government data show much brighter job & earnings prospects for people with college degrees. Labor Department figures show median weekly earnings at $668 last year for full-time wage & salary workers with only a high-school degree. For those with at least a bachelor’s degree, the figure was $1,193. The unemployment rate also is significantly lower for college grads.

To be sure, the value of a college education varies widely depending the institution & the degree a student acquires. But for now, the investment appears worthwhile.

Parents also are kicking in a big share of college costs. Mr. Kantrowitz’s analysis shows that among parents taking out loans to pay for a child’s education, average debt crept up to $30,867 this year from $29,684 in 2014. About 17% of graduates have parents with loans out on their behalf.

All together, total education debt–including federal & private education loans–will tally nearly $68 billion this year for graduates with a bachelor’s degree & their parents, Mr. Kantrowitz estimates, a more than 10-fold increase since 1994.