When your parents advise you to "get an education" in order to raise your income, they tell you only half the truth. What they really mean is to get just enough education to provide manpower for your society, but not so much that you prove an embarrassment to your society.
Get a college degree, if possible. With a B. A. , you'll have a good start. But now you have to slow down. If you go for a master's degree, make sure it is an M. B. A. , and only from a first-rate university. Beyond this, the famous law of diminishing returns (报酬递减率) begins to take effect.
Do you know, for instance, that long distant truck drivers earn more per year than full professors? Yes, the average 1977 salary for those truckers was $ 24, 000, while the full professors managed to earn just $ 23, 030.
A Ph. D. (博士) is the highest degree you can get. Except for a few specialized fields such as physics or chemistry where the degree can quickly be turned to industrial or commercial purposes, if you pursue such a degree in any other field, you will face a dim future. There are more Ph. D. s unemployed or under-employed in this country than in any other part of the world.
If you become a Ph. D. in English or history or political science or languages or-worst of all-in philosophy, you run the risk of becoming overeducated for our national demands. Not for our needs, mind you, but for our demands.
Thousands of Ph. D. s are selling shoes, driving cars, waiting on tables, and endlessly filling out applications month after month. They may also take a job in some high school or second-rate college that pays much less than what the doorkeeper earns.
You can equate (同等看待) the level of income with the level of education only so far. Far enough, that is, to make you useful to the gross national product, but not so far that nobody can turn much of a profit on you.
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