The fall of 2008 was an interesting time to be a college freshman. The stock market crashed, and the economy finally gave up the ghosts. The reasons for this ignoble event are numerous, and at the time I did not care.
It was freshman year, and between classes and my job at a fast food joint on the outskirts of Indianapolis, I was too busy to care. Sadly, this lack of attention came back to haunt me later on.
About three years later, 2011, when the economy was officially growing again, I needed a better job. The fast food joint gave neither the rate nor the hours needed to maintain even a minimal lifestyle. Financial aid was sinking, and I was desperate.
There was one problem, an issue that sticks in my craw to this day. All of the employers, even those looking for entry level positions answering phones, wanted a college degree. The fact that I needed to work in order to afford the degree mattered not. Nor did my experience to that date. I was left jobless, broke, and completely desperate.
At that point, I had only one option. I needed to go into business for myself. Read on to find out what steps I took, and how it changed me from a dyed in the wool log cabin Republican to the moderate/leaning Democrat I am today.
I had only thirty dollars to my name. Not a penny more, and a decent chunk of student loans that were not going to wait patiently for me to find an employer who would be willing to look at my skill set and desire to work, rather than if I had the actual piece of paper stating I finished such-and-such program.
I used it to join a freelance site, unimaginatively titled freelanced.com. It was a shot in the dark, I had no idea what to expect. Within twenty four hours I had made contact with a woman that I still work with today. Over a year, thanks to her alone, I have managed to turn that $30 to several thousand dollars.
This initial client gave me the emotional boost I needed. From there, I sought out more clients and stumbled upon another issue. I did not have a portfolio of completed work. As a writer, how I write where it is published counts for more than something hanging on a wall.
I set out to correct this, by joining another freelance site. This site I only recommend to those looking to quickly boost their portfolio, for it specializes in convincing freelancers to work below livable wages. Fiverr.com
Working with this site, I quickly gained experience in handling numerous types of clients and documents. Within months, I was prepared to expand my reach elsewhere. Leaving the site, I returned to the freelanced.com, now armed with a portfolio and a professional website that I control.
From then, I have successfully been hired to ghostwrite three books, and am expanding at a slow but steady pace.
What has my experiences, first as a student and later as a member of the work force, taught me? That the current system is broken. The college system is too expensive, due to rapidly growing costs that have pushed it out of reach for all but the foolish, the desperate, and the rich.
The second is that employers are now using this system to lower their costs. On the job training does not occur anymore, and even in entry level positions the degree is used as a sieve to separate people into classes. Experienced, intelligent, but no degree? Do not apply.
As a freelancer, I put myself in a position where my work speaks for me. A person looking for a ghostwriter cares about the final product, and will go with the excellent writer without credentials over the credentialed idiot any day of the week.
Why has this growing disparity occurred? There are two major reasons, the first political and the other technological.
For the political, lets look at the education system as it stands. Education is viewed as a financial product, to be bought and sold. In any free market, if the commodity can be manipulated at will by a limited number of sellers then the price will increase until a maximum price is achieved.
This is fine, as long as outside factors do not come into play. The student loan system was created to enable the poorest students a chance to go to college. Like all financial systems created by politicians, it became a tool of both parties in an effort to garner votes. As the limits were raised, the natural cap on tuitions were removed. Fees skyrocketed, several times faster than inflation.
When the market died, the ability for the government to continue supporting this rapid growth disappeared with it. This left poor, though promising, students such as myself in a lurch. We no longer had a way to pay for this expensive education, and the fees were far beyond what would be affordable under a non-loan influenced system.
The final issue relates to the simple fact that the jobs are no longer there to support the population. Technological growth is removing whole layers of the service industry, taking everything from middle-management to the waitress at a local bar.
What replaces a thousand middle-managers? A dozen programmers. Why hire a lawyer when you can print out a will and fill out the blanks, and then have a system automatically double check your work after referencing a dozen databases for up to date software.
As technology improves, more jobs will be rendered obsolete.
It is not my goal to posit a solution to the problems facing us. I am neither intelligent enough, nor arrogant enough, to believe I have a solution. A public conversation must be held. How will these two problems be solved? What steps are needed to implement them?