There are 5,057 janitors in the U.S. with Ph.D.’s

[jeffrey]

Over 317,000 waiters and waitresses have college degrees (over 8,000 of them have doctoral or professional degrees)...

There are 5,057 janitors in the U.S. with Ph.D.’s, other doctorates, or professional degrees...

For hundreds of thousands of Americans, spending four years and untold amounts of money (and debt?) gets you a job as a waiter, parking lot attendant, or janitor.

Ben Casnocha: The Blog: What 17 Million Americans Got from a College Degree

[disneysteve]

How many of those are full-time positions? How many of those are retirees working those jobs after completing their primary careers? How many of those are second jobs to bring in extra money? How many of those degrees are in useless fields, like German Polka History as Dave Ramsey would say?

I really question the details behind those numbers. While at first sounding rather disturbing, I have a feeling that if you really dig into them, many of them have reasonable explanations.

[Joan.of.the.Arch]

The post reminds me of the movie Good Will Hunting, in which the math genius main character was working as a janitor at the university.

Somewhere I found a website that estimates earnings in a given type job based on education, years of experience in the field, and city of residence. Anxious about my student son's future, I inquired what his prospects might be. It told me that for the same years of experience, in the same city, he would be better off with a MS than a PhD. I'm guessing that the PhDs are more likely to be working in lesser paid academia while the others are more likely in commercial work.

[AsiaTraveler]

This article says that these are all Americans, but I do wonder if at least some of them are recently-naturalized Americans with degrees from others parts of the world. I have heard stories of people coming to America with their Ph.D.s but being unable to use them due to red tape around proving their degree.

[nick__45]

Originally Posted by disneysteve

How many of those are full-time positions? How many of those are retirees working those jobs after completing their primary careers? How many of those are second jobs to bring in extra money? How many of those degrees are in useless fields, like German Polka History as Dave Ramsey would say?

I really question the details behind those numbers. While at first sounding rather disturbing, I have a feeling that if you really dig into them, many of them have reasonable explanations.

Please stop having too much common sense. It is very dangerous to society at large. It is better to be passionate ****-tard than to be a thinking man.

[jpg7n16]

So what he's saying is less than 2% of all college grads work as waitstaff. (317k/17mil = 1.86%)

Yeah, that sounds about right.


Statistics are funny. See... this article:

20% of Unemployed Have College Degrees | Fellowship of the Minds

...could also be said, that if you don't have a college degree, you are 4 times more likely to be unemployed.

It's all in how you look at the numbers.