Three degrees and two master's and still broke: credentialism doesn't pay

Three degrees and two master's and still broke: credentialism doesn't pay

What's the point of piling up degrees if someone who never even finished secondary school takes home five figures a month? The question is no longer theoretical. The writer Lucía Etxebarria, with three degrees, two master's degrees and a doctorate in pogre, has come to embody the bitter flip side of academic effort: scraping by on donations from her trinc while other careers and other surnames earn ten times more without a single higher-education qualification.

The perfect CV that doesn't fill the fridge

The case at the center of attention is almost a caricature of meritocracy: a flawless academic record, publications and media presence, and a bottom line that doesn't add up. Some argue the problem isn't studying, but what you study: "paint-by-numbers" degrees, as they're described, that accredit each other and churn out graduates in bulk for a labor market that no longer needs them. Opposing them is the argument that society pushes people into higher education with the promise of an economic return, and that this promise has been broken: it's not that plumbers should be poor, but they are, while the TV pundit with no education lives better than the engineer.

No degrees, but the right surname: the other side of the mirror

The comparison with Gonzalo Miró is inevitable, along with Sara Santaolalla, who appears in the same group of profiles with no formal education and high incomes. Miró's lack of university education is contrasted with a television career with salaries that, according to circulating figures, exceed €10,000 a month. This is "nepotism" in its most visible form: the surname and connections as a substitute for a résumé. Rumors about his parentage, linking him to former Prime Minister Felipe González, have circulated for years, fueling the suspicion that there's a fast track to success that doesn't go through the classroom. A colder analysis holds that the well-connected rarely end well: they take on jobs they don't know how to do, get bored, collect their pay and quit, and their failure ends up being as loud as their arrival. The myth of the happy parasite falls apart when it's time to deliver results.

Vocational training, the long-overlooked option that was right all along

Back in the 80s and 90s, advertising campaigns promoted vocational training and talked about how much plumbers earned. Decades later, the market still needs skilled hands to install, repair and build, while universities keep turning out graduates in disciplines with few job prospects. The paradox is that technical trades have gone from being seen as a respectable option to being the plan B for those who couldn't study, just when they're the ones with the best job security.

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With these figures on the table, anyone would think vocational training programs would be overflowing. They remain empty, while the classrooms of "paint-by-numbers" degrees fill up. Economics will explain why; for now, society keeps buying the academic lottery ticket and waiting for the winning number. The gap between the résumé and the paycheck remains exactly the same: some collect degrees and others collect income. Let's see who finds the joke funny first.