Canada

As a late gen x/early millenial, I was told to get a college degree in STEM. I did that, and got an MS and PhD. I finished my doctorate in 2008 just in time for the housing market to crash and forced austerity via republican wars and george bush. I spent 3 years in a postdoctoral fellowship, effectively making $10 hourly based on hours I worked VS salary. After my fellowship, in 2011, I could NOT find a job in my field, because there were no jobs. I gave up and leveraged my education into a different field.

I ended up working for the state, in a position that has nothing to do with my education, and only requires a high school diploma. I make $30 an hour now. 13 years after I finished my fellowship and gave up, I started having STEM companies cold calling me to offer me positions because they saved my resume. Best part was being offered $30 hourly, which is what I already make in a position that doesn't require post secondary education. Telling them not to bother me unless they were prepared to offer me $60 hourly felt fucking amazing.

The point to my rambling is that whatever is "in demand" could change at a moments notice for any reason. If you're going to spend 4-10 years of your life learning a particular skill set in a particular field of study, you should at least enjoy yourself and feel enthusiastic about what you are studying.

I'm not a Canadian, but if I came across Doug Ford slowly dying on the street, I'd step the fuck over his body and keep walking.

Get rid of OSAP altogether. Make university free and fully taxpayer funded and introduce negative income tax for students.

If AI is going to be arbitrarily deleting a bunch of fields, the concept of "in-demand jobs" is pointless. "Basket weaving" type classes might sound silly to stupid conservatives today but might be exactly what makes an AI-based economy tick in a couple of years (eg., a linguistics and philosophy degree might be exactly what you need if you need to be able to effectively set up and debug an AI agent).

Not to mention of course that the point of a university education is not "jobs", it is to have an educated citizenry that is the bedrock of any kind of democracy. Conservatives have never understood the point of education in the first place. Fuck 'em.

If we get rid of all the basket weavers then where will we get baskets?

Oh right, from outside Ontario because Ford only acts in the interests of others.

What are those in-demand jobs Doug? Software eng was in-demand a few years ago when a shit ton of people went into CS for it. How's that going now? If you're not making any job guarantees, putting more of the burden of market failures on students is not the recipe for economic development you think it is.

Hey, can't I just get a job the same way that Doug Ford did? BTW, what undergrad degree did he get?

I was told by a Lockheed recruiter to get a degree in basket weaving. They didn't care what the degree was, it was just a requirement for the job I was already over qualified for.

Druggie just wants to pump out more cogs for his rich buddies' machines.

Fuck Doug Ford.

I've seen enough people start to resent life bc they tried to shoe-horn themselves into a degree field they couldn't understand and hated. College isn't meant for that.

"We don't need thinking people. We need numbers on the chart to go up-up-up!"

I wonder how many foreign made woven baskets decorate the Ford home.

I bet a lot.

And no sticker-making business dreams. That’s his job!