As we explored in our last post conventional wisdom about the value of a B.A. in obtaining a good-paying job and having a prosperous forty-year career is vastly underestimated. The Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce calculates that 59 percent of today’s good-paying jobs require a B.A. and that will grow to 66 percent in 2031.

The stories that dominate the public conversation about the labor market are not only inaccurate in their portrayal of the value of a B.A. compared to sub B.A.credentials, but also in its description of which occupations provide the most good-paying jobs. Conventional wisdom has it that good-paying jobs are narrowly focused in the skilled trades and in STEM occupations. Not close to reality both today and tomorrow.

The reality is that there are a wide variety of good-paying jobs now and as projected by the Center on Education and the Workforce will be a decade from now. As you can see below, management is, by far, the occupation cluster with the most good-paying jobs. Computer and math occupations are the largest STEM occupation cluster and it ranks the seventh largest. The largest skilled trades occupation cluster is construction and extraction ranking eight.

In the Michigan Future analysis of good-paying jobs we pull out first-line supervisors from all the occupation groups. If you do that, the proportion of good-paying management jobs goes up substantially. We found that first-line supervisors are the largest good-paying jobs occupation among jobs that don’t require a B.A.

Here are the proportions of good-paying 2031 jobs by occupation in the Georgetown report. Only those occupations that have at least 3 percent of all good-paying jobs are listed. A far more diverse list of occupations than conventional wisdom.

• Management: 21%
• Business and finance: 9%
• Healthcare professional and technical 9%
• Education, training and library: 7%
• sales: 7%
• Office and administrative support: 7%
• Computer and math: 6%
• Construction and extraction 5%
• Transportation and materials moving: 4%
• Production: 4%
• Architecture and engineering: 3%
• Installation, maintenance and repair: 3%

How many parents and students do you think know that there are more good-paying jobs projected in 2031 in both sales and office and administrative support than either construction or computers?

If we’re serious––as we should be––about providing all students information about all good-paying occupations we will have to dramatically change the story we are telling them about what the labor market today and tomorrow looks like. We need a reality based story about a labor market where there are a wide variety of good-paying job opportunities. Where the path to a prosperous career is not narrowly focused on either a STEM degree or learning a skilled trade. And where a four-year degree in any major is the most reliable path to the middle class.

The post The wide variety of good-paying jobs now and in the future appeared first on Michigan Future Inc..

Terrific new report entitled The Future of Good Jobs | Projections through 2031 by the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce. Highly recommended.

Using what we would consider a low-bar definition of a good-paying job the report projects in 2031 66 percent of good-paying jobs will be B.A. pathway jobs; 19 percent middle skills pathway jobs and 15 percent high school pathway jobs.

The good news is that the report projects the proportion of good-paying jobs will increase from 59 percent of all jobs in 2021 to 62 percent in 2031. A net increase of 15.2 million jobs. Of that increase basically all are B.A. pathways jobs. So the proportion of good-paying jobs over the next decade that require a B.A. goes up from 59 percent to 66 percent.

More specifically:

• The report defines a good-paying job as one that pays at least $43,000 for workers age 25-44 and $55,000 for workers age 45-64. The report notes that “many of the good jobs referred to in this report pay well above the minimum earnings threshold and provide room for earnings growth with time”.
• The report also provides state level thresholds for good-paying jobs. For Michigan those thresholds are $40,200 for workers age 25-44 and $51,700 for workers age 45-64
• Nationally there were 42.6 million good-paying B.A. pathway jobs in 2021 and it is projected that will grow to 58.2 million in 2031
• Nationally there were 16.2 million good-paying middle skills pathway jobs in 2021 and it is projected that will grow slightly to 16.4 million in 2031
• Nationally there were 13.8 million good-paying high school pathway jobs in 2021 and it is projected that will fall slightly to 13.2 million in 2031

This reality today, and even more so projected a decade from now, is much different that conventional wisdom. The public conversation is dominated by the story that you can now do as well economically without a four-year degree as you can with one. That preeminent story is simply inaccurate. By far the most reliable path to a good-paying jobs and a good-paying forty-year career is to follow the B.A. pathway.

Also contrary to conventional wisdom are the occupations with the most good-paying jobs. Conventional wisdom has it that good-paying jobs are highly concentrated in the skilled trades for those without a B.A. and in STEM occupation fo those with a B.A. Neither is accurate. STEM occupations account for 11 percent of all good-paying jobs projected in 2031. Blue collar occupations––defined in the report as all jobs in construction and extraction; production; transportation and material moving; installation, maintenance, and repair; and farming, fishing, and forestry––account for 17 percent of all good-paying jobs projected in 2031.

By far the most good-paying jobs are in the management and professional office cluster––which encompasses the management, business and financial operations, and legal occupational groups. The cluster accounts for 31 percent of all the good-paying jobs projected in 2031.

Other occupation clusters with lots of good-paying jobs projected in 2031 are sales and office support at 14 percent, healthcare professional and technical at nine percent and education, training, and library at seven percent.

The post B.A. pathway dominates good-paying jobs today and tomorrow appeared first on Michigan Future Inc..

What is amazing is that this is news. If facts matter––and increasingly they don’t in our politics or public conversation––this is the ultimate no-brainer.  As Schmidt says it can’t be clearer: the value of a four-year degree over a career is rising, not falling. See this recent report from the Pew Research Center and this report from the Hamilton Project at the Brookings Institution and this report from the Center on Education and the Workforce at Georgetown University for the detailed evidence.

As I wrote in a post three years ago: “The value of a college degree is far more than how quickly a graduate gets a first job and how much it pays. These are the short term metrics that fuel the “college isn’t worth it” nonsense. Rather the payoff is over an entire career. It comes from having skills that give you a competitive edge in all industries and most occupations, in having skills that may not be in demand today but will be in the future and in learning how to learn so that you can better spot new opportunities and take advantage of them in a constantly changing labor market.”

(The Pew and Georgetown research makes clear that even if the measure is only the first job, those with four-year degrees are doing substantially better than those with less education on both employment and pay in the still less than robust post Great Recession  economy.)

The value of higher education is in developing broad skills –– including becoming a lifelong learner –– that are the foundation of successful forty year careers. Careers that will look much more like rock climbing than ladder climbing. Building a foundation to do well over a long career is only going to grow in value in an economy where technology and globalization accelerate creative destruction. Destroying jobs and occupations and creating new, unimaginable, jobs and occupations at a quicker and quicker pace.

The post “Go to college” appeared first on Michigan Future Inc..