Is a college degree a good ROI?

One of the reasons Columbia University can claim that poverty among young children was at 45% during the Obama years is that pesky threshold the academics and bureaucrats say is needed to support a family. Let's say you've dumped the kids' deadbeat dad, finished college and gone on for your dream degree--a Master's in Library Science (today the degree title may use the word information or technology, but you know what I mean). You've got debt, but everyone says a college degree is the ticket to the middle class. $32-$35,000 isn't terrific, but not unusual for a beginning MLS degree in a small city, and it varies state to state, but so does the poverty threshold. Probably the para-professionals in the library who've been working 20 years earn more, but you'll have that pride of possession and benefits that far exceed the private sector. According to our government, that salary is low income, and you'll need at least $50,000 in a medium sized Ohio city to climb out of that category. 

The largest number of children in low income households are white, but the highest percentage are minority (36% white; 29% Asian; 69% black). The fact sheet I'm reading (Basic Facts about Low-Income Children: Children under 3 Years, 2015) does mention education and jobs to climb out of the low income category, but ignores marriage.

If you try to work the internet on ROI for a college degree, you get--guess what--articles written by academics urging you to take on a 4 year college cost of $140,000.  And why not?  They need to keep those seats filled in college xyz.

Someone thinks an MLS matters

While browsing through the University of Illinois Library School (not called that anymore--maybe never was) announcements I noticed that on Feb. 27 there would be a talk by Rya Ben-Shir, MLS, Senior Manager, Intelligencenter, Takeda Pharmaceuticals North America, Inc. Deerfield, Illinois on why she and Takeda Pharmaceuticals insist on MLS/MLIS prepared librarians for all of their librarian positions. How novel. Illinois didn't choose an MLS trained librarian as their Dean, John Unsworth,--they went for high tech--and Ohio State's Library Director, Joe Branin, is moving that direction by proposing the MLS be removed as a requirement for professional positions. I think we could see the writing on the wall when a number of years ago, they added “be willing to obtain an MLS within two years” so they could attract some skills or ethnic groups to round out the technical and affirmative action requirements. Often that was stop gap, with the new hires moving on quickly, because then they had both the MLS and the desired status that other institutions were wanting. ALA is no help. It pokes its leftist nose into every little cranny of political and navel gazing movement, leaving librarians to struggle on their own with low salaries, failing bond issues, and a professional leadership always chasing the talent brass ring of other professions. It wouldn't surprise me if ALA takes pride in the fact that beginning librarians, with advanced degrees, probably qualify for government earned income relief, government health insurance for their children and school lunch programs.

When two college kids invented a better way a mere decade ago to find and serve up information (Google), and librarians oo'd and ah'd, dithered and quivered over digital rights, and then went on with business as usual to save the world through socialist politics and local lyceums, our fate was sealed. And they, idealist entrepreneurs, became millionaires many times over. We should have stuck with our knitting.