Newsweek ran an article by Jason Bedrick and Adam Kissel claiming that employers are less likely to hire college grads because students are brainwashed by woke ideology. From Newsweek:
When the survey asked employers if they were "more or less likely to consider a job-seeker with a 4-year degree from a major university or college," employers were four times more likely to answer in the negative (41 percent) than in the affirmative (10 percent), while an additional 42 percent said it made no difference. Amazingly, almost 20 times as many employers were said they were "strongly" less likely to hire the applicant with a college degree than "strongly" more likely.
Why? One respondent complained that college graduates "typically have an incompatible ideology with my business culture." College students indoctrinated in "intersectionality" and "critical gender studies" who are trained to spot "microaggressions" in every mundane interaction do not, it seems, make for sought-after employees.
The "woke" ideological orthodoxy on campus isn't doing students any favors. Colleges were once regarded as places where students critically assessed a wide variety of viewpoints, but employers no longer see them that way. When asked whether colleges are "fostering free speech and debate, thereby graduating students capable of debating ideas and using critical thinking," a whopping 97 percent disagreed.
A few reasons to be skeptical here. First, employers may use surveys to make political complaints, but still end up hiring college grads. Why? College is an important signaling device. Kids who can finish college may be subject to various ideologies, but that still means they are literate and can sit in a class for years, which translates to employability. Also, the authors present zero evidence that wages are falling, or for increasing unemployment rates among college grads, the sure sign that the college degree has lost value.
Second, people have complained for decades about crazy Lefty professors indoctrinating kids. The article by Bedrick and Kissel is another in a long line of panic articles written by folks who are upset with the liberal leanings of professors. Yet, college grads still have higher wages and better jobs on the average. In the 1960s, folks worried about “hippie” profs. In the 1980s, it was canon-busting multiculturalists. Today, people panic about woke professors. Same difference.
While labor markets are probably unaffected, the rise of wokeness in the 2010s in higher ed has at least one real effect. American cultural institutions now have a cohort of employees who use wokeness as a language for interacting with co-workers. This is probably the thing that cranky employers are complaining about in surveys. But don’t mistake that for a devaluation of the most important credential you can get in American society.
Bottom line: Your professors may be worry about your privilege, but college grads will still get what they paid for.
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