ABSTRACT
In order to motivate people to go to college and to increase the public funding for higher education, many politicians and school officials have argued that on average, people with college degrees make much more money than people without degrees. We are witnessing a growing rate of degree deflation where people with college degrees are now working at jobs that did not use to require more than a high school degree. A related myth to the mismatch theory is the idea that in the recovery following the Great Recession, people with college degrees did much better, and so education really did pay off. An important myth that the employment practices of universities disprove is the idea that education and employment are directly related. "Highly competitive science- and technology-driven industries are volatile, where radical restructurings and boom-and-bust cycles have been the norm for decades. Many STEM jobs today are also targets for outsourcing or replacement by automation".
