Disillusionment with Higher Education in the Middle East and U.S.

University graduates in the Middle East and the United States of America are disillusioned with their higher education degrees. Youth expect to be well employed upon graduation and to improve their social status. Employment has been guaranteed from the earliest university certificates granted in Middle Eastern yeshivas, Houses of Learning, and universities. Their graduates were employed as rabbis, ulemas and judges. Likewise, the earliest universities in the United States were affiliated with religious orders to educate the elite in legal, religious and military knowledge. Although employment was not guaranteed in the United States, it was not difficult to obtain if one had the very prestigious university degree. Today, employment can no longer be guaranteed in the Middle East, initiating years of waiting for university graduates in order to obtain a low-paying but secure position in the military or as a government employee. While the guarantee remains, the governments of Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Tunisia, Libya and Egypt can no longer pay the thousands of graduates who lack the skills to enter the private sector marketplace. Only the government will hire them. The social and political mandates of providing education to all youth has overcrowded existing facilities and overwhelmed professors. In the United States, the recession that began in 2008 has exacerbated unemployment or underemployment of recent graduates. Unlike Middle Eastern university students whose education is free through the doctorate, Americans' educational expenses leave them thousands of dollars in debt, which they must begin to repay upon graduation. Universities are beginning to implement reforms to address the disconnect for university graduates between their university education and the marketplace requirements in the United States and throughout the Middle East.