Letters: Welcome to the real world, millennials
Re “An over-educated nanny’s lament,” Opinion, March 30
Emily Koss’ Op-Ed article lamenting her predicament about being an over-educated nanny demonstrates that she is not taking responsibility for the choices she has made. As a university professor and the father of a college junior and high school junior, I know it is important not just to graduate from college but to graduate with a degree that provides you an employable profession with a decent salary.
Koss says that for the first time education is not the answer for improving one’s status and expanding opportunities. However, the U.S. Census Bureau says that over the course of working 40 years, a high school grad will earn about $1 million, while someone with at least a bachelor’s degree will earn twice that.
Koss needed to ask herself before choosing a major if there was a demand for that degree. It’s too late to ask that question after you graduate.
Gregory Frazer
Los Angeles
It’s most daunting, as 24-year-old Koss relates, that meaningful employment has proved so elusive for well-educated millennials like herself. Let’s hope Koss won’t have to settle for menial day jobs for long after “slogging through 18 years of school.”
Perhaps the iconic 1960s folk-rock song “Subterranean Homesick Blues” will console her as she continues to pay her day-job dues. Bob Dylan didn’t much miss the mark when he empathized, “Twenty years of schoolin’ and they put you on the day shift.”
Gene Martinez
Orcutt, Calif.
Poor Koss and her friends are part of the “best-educated generation in American history” despite the fact that they can’t find the jobs they want.
It’s no longer enough to major in a liberal arts field with the feel-good dream of serving nonprofit causes. Jobs worthy of a paycheck today are nannying, clerking, cooking and teaching — fields those from past generations worked “to pay the bills” until we could advance up the ladder.
Members of Koss’ so-called best-educated generation should have researched the job market before choosing their majors in college.
Sue Perry
Morro Bay
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