Too Cool For School

The population of Canada in 1960 was 17.8 million people. The population of Canada today is 35.5 million people. This means that 50 years ago, there was half the population that there is today and you only had to compete with half the people for a job. Post-secondary education only started to become important in the 60’s, while today it is one of the most important things in young adults’ lives.

Photo: Sean Kilpatrick

Having twice the amount of people living in the same country, means there’s a very high chance of someone being more qualified than you for a specific job than there was fifty years ago. Back then, completing a post-secondary education was meant to really put a finishing touch on your resume, but most jobs didn’t require it. If you wanted to have a career such as a lawyer or a doctor, then of course you needed a higher level of education.

Only beginning in the 1960’s, when industrializing began to take place, was the demand for a higher education increasing. That generation began to realize that since the population was growing, their chances of getting a job was becoming slimmer and they needed to differentiate themselves from other applicants applying for the same job.

Today, a college degree will barely suffice to get into a higher qualified job. Now you have to go to university, and even then you have to perform very well compared to the rest of the class. A collegiate and university degree has now become the basic standard when applying for most jobs, and unfortunately, sometimes the number of degrees you have isn’t even enough, it becomes about the people you know and connections you have.

The view on post-secondary education has become much more important today than it was fifty-something years ago. As it becomes harder to find a job with double the amount of people who are just as, if not more, qualified than you, the emphasis on post-secondary education increases.  Back then, it wasn’t so common for someone to have a level of education past high school, so why would anyone want to go to school if you could easily get a job without having to go to school?