A quarter century ago in his book, Another Way to Win, Dr. Kenneth Gray coined the term “one way to win.” He described the OWTW strategy widely followed in the US as: 

• Graduate from high school. 

• Matriculate at a four-year college. 

• Graduate with a degree in “anything.” 

• Become employed in a professional job.” 

 Dr. Gray’s message to the then “academic middle” was that this was unlikely to be a successful strategy in the future. The succeeding twenty-five years have proven him inordinately prescient and not just for the “academic middle.”
The simple explanation is that it comes down to “supply” (graduates) and “demand” (suitable jobs). 

Sixty-five years ago. only seven percent of high school graduates went on to college. They tended to be the “smart kids.” In post-WW II America, our economy was booming while the economies of many European and Asian countries were, only slowly, being rebuilt. The “Law of Supply and Demand” strongly favored the freshly minted college graduate.  

If these students managed to graduate with a degree in “anything,” i.e. English, Psychology, Comp-lit, Philosophy, etc., they could get a “college” job. Parents and students noticed how college really paid off, and the “great gold rush” to the halls of higher learning began. 

The gold rush is over, but today, most parents (and their students) are oblivious to how college really works. 

In some ways it is hard to blame them. Colleges and universities have a powerful public relations team, pushing the message 24/7 that “college is for everyone.” The team is made up of educators, guidance counselors, financial aid officers, politicians, pop culture, special interest groups–like the College Board, and college administrators—who are the biggest beneficiaries. Their influence is everywhere. 

Here’s how college works today: 

• Over the years a greater and greater portion of high school grads answered the call, “You have to go to college!” We are now at about 40%, many of whom are marginal college students.  

• To accommodate this horde of students, many colleges have watered down certain programs, e.g. the Humanities.  

• The “Law of Supply and Demand” no longer favors the recent college graduate. College is a competition for the relatively few well-paying, professional jobs available each year. Half of graduates find themselves underemployed, e.g. making lattes.  

• Demographics are making it harder and harder for colleges and universities to “put butts in the seats.”  

Some colleges and universities are cutting back on their Humanities programs because of lack of demand. See notes. 

Notes 

Anticipating a $45 million budget shortfall, West Virginia University president E. Gordon Gee recently moved to eliminate thirty-two different undergraduate and graduate programs—roughly half of them in the arts and humanities, including all foreign language programs. This resulted in cutting 169 full-time faculty members.   

Many, many years ago, my “anything” degree, Philosophy, was from a state university in fly-over country, better known for its football team than scholarship. (As I vaguely remember, my GPA wasn’t that robust either.) However, I had a successful career in IT and retired as an executive from a Fortune 100 company.