Another degree?  You’ve got to be kidding!  I’m still owe $60,000 on this one.

Those were my thoughts this week.  In my feeble attempt at networking, I mentioned to someone that I was looking for a job.  “Ah,” he said, sagely.  “What you really need is an MBA.”  And he wasn’t the first one to suggest it.

Apparently, I can get one in my spare time at UCLA.

On the one hand, I can see their point – more degrees = greater access to employment.  On the other hand – are they kidding?!?  I went to the well regarded, New England, sister school.  I got a graduate degree from the well regarded Ivy League school – and that’s not enough?

Lately, I’ve been lamenting – or myopically dwelling as Adam puts it – on my career – or lack thereof.  Like the folks before me who thought getting a job at IBM was a job for life – I, perhaps naively, thought that getting a degree would be the equivalent of a full employment guarantee.

A plethora of articles in the Village Voice (Generation Debt series), and L.A. Times (New Deal series) have all but cured me of that belief.

In the early 1900s most Americans were self-employed.  I think, in some sense, we’re moving toward that again.  Many of my friends and acquaintances are freelancing or consulting – or however you want to describe working for employers who pay low hourly wages with no benefits – but as professional contractors – we should be grateful, I suppose.  The full time, full benefit job is elusive for many.  We’re paying our own health insurance, self-employment taxes, and consider ourselves lucky.

Looking at the Los Angeles Magazine – in an article suggesting a college degree is the minimum needed to possibly secure gainful employment — it appears that the college degree will soon be ubiquitous.

Now, I stand by my promise that I wont be getting any more education – I can’t afford it.  In this capitalist society, however, the question remains as to when will it come to it that I can’t not afford to get that next degree . . . .

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