Where Higher Education Leads

This is in regard to Shelley Tucker’s letter, “An Education in Today’s Realities” (Feb. 4), in which she related how her decision to go back to school at age 44 to get a bachelor’s degree has so far gotten her $30,000 in debt and no job, despite 2,000 resumes sent out.

She is right on target when she criticizes universities for emphasizing the value of an education while doing little to convince employers to hire older workers who have gone back to school.

I’m 43 years old and majoring in accounting at Cal State L.A. Despite the number of accountants who are currently unemployed, I still think that accounting is a reasonably good subject to major in. Perhaps I should have majored in electrical engineering, but I may never know if my choice of major was the right one or the wrong one.

My accounting background is helpful in my office temp job, but I’m surprised how many employers aren’t interested in my resume, even if it does mention my being an upper division student in accounting.

My point is that any prospective college student, whether he is 20 to 40 years old, should take a very mercenary view of the great expense and trouble of getting a college degree and ask himself what rewards in the job market that degree will bring him.

And incidentally, I don’t agree with Ms. Tucker’s statement that “there are no jobs to be had if you’re over 35 and haven’t majored in computer science or nursing.” In a computer information systems class that I took recently, we learned how the latest generations of computer languages are designed to require fewer programmers and how some companies are hiring programmers from India and Russia who work for practically nothing.

MATTHEW OKADA

Pasadena