Higher Education Important in the 21st Century

By Adreesh Roy

In today’s world, higher education is like motherhood; it will cure just about anything in an America that is threatened by globalization, outsourcing, and income inequality. No matter how well Americans are educated, global competition and rapidly changing technology is having adverse effects on the American labor force.

After World War II, America emerged as an economic and military power. We have cherished the supremacy for the last 50 years. In this period America saw an unparallel economic boom. It was during this period that our parents migrated to this land of opportunities. Today, the US workers face a great new threat. Americans who are now joining the workforce compete against legions of college grads in China, India and Philippines that are willing to work 2 times as hard for 1/5th the pay. Our employers take advantage of this huge wage difference between the US and developing nations to outsource more and more jobs each year. A recent study shows that 25% of US jobs are off-shore-able. Not surprisingly these are mostly routine tasks. In such a market higher education becomes imperative while we downsize ranks of operators, secretaries, analysts and other routine tasks.

Data shows that of the 22 fields in which job growth will be promising in the 21st century, 20 are in advanced sciences like robotics, engineering, biotechnology & health care. All these fields will require Americans to pursue graduate levels of education.

Detroit has been long been called “the automobile capital of the world and has been a leading employer of this sector. I want to walk you through the transformation of the job market in Detroit over the span of three generations. Let’s take a look at a family in Detroit, MI. A person’s grandfather did not go to college but could still work in an assembly line at the car factory. That same job has now been automated and can be performed by robotic hands. To find employment with that same car company the grandchildren will need a higher more specialized field of education in order to troubleshoot and ensure the smooth working of a much more technical and complex assembly line. It has been said that cities with a higher proportions of college graduates can react more quickly to technological changes and learn new skills readily. Cities like Boston nicknamed “information city”, have fared much better in these last two decades than cities like Detroit with lower levels of education.

Jobs all around the world have become more technical. This has lead to the elimination of repetitive cookie-cutter type of jobs. The only jobs that have survived in this rapidly automated world are the ones that require analysis and problem solving skills only acquired by higher education.

I hope I have persuaded my peers present here that getting a higher education beyond high school is a pre-requisite to realizing the hopes and dreams of your parents and to acquire that “mazaratti” you swoon over.