Thanks for calling a spade a spade.

I haven't run across this much, but it is a stereotype: "I served, therefore I am better than you." Okay, fine. "I was smart enough not to do that, therefore I'll humor you." It's not a problem you run into in nations with conscript militaries.

THE PROBLEM WITH COMM AND ENGLISH DEGREES:

You're talking about a basic proficiency at, well, "basic proficiency." That's the classic argument against liberal arts degrees: they teach you no specialization, they simply refine the stuff you should be good at already. Let's take two people: Amber and Eggbert. Amber has an English degree, Eggbert has a Chemistry degree. Both of them are free-falling into an economy with no jobs and a great deal of disdain for them. Amber is well-spoken, well-read, well-groomed and well-received everywhere she goes. Eggbert is awkward, plays Starcraft, wears Wolf shirts and can fix your computer.

Amber can head out into the market and get "people-facing" jobs. At her level of experience, these are likely to be retail or volunteer. Her only true path from there is management. Once she has risen to the level of site manager, she is immune from promotion until she has a graduate degree, at which point she will be judged solely on her graduate degree. Her liberal arts degree is pretty much going to top out at $40k a year.

Eggbert is completely locked out of "people-facing" jobs because he sucks at it. However, he can be a lab tech. He can work in manufacturing. His ladder is from "protected entry-level" to "protected industry-specific." Without an additional degree he's still on a pathway towards specialization where his income is going to outstrip Amber's. We can presume he's not going to get better with people, and we can presume he's not going to become a snappier dresser (a cruel presumption, but functional for this discussion). Eggbert, without spending an additional $50-$150k on an advanced degree, is on a pathway into the land of $80k jobs.

Now let's take Amber's sister, Angela. Angela grew up in the same household as Amber and has the same people skills. She's also a snappy dresser. Instead of a liberal arts degree, however, she pursues Chemistry like Eggbert. She has two pathways open to her: Amber's and Eggbert's. More importantly, she has access to the management track within protected industry: she can write reports, she can deliver results at meetings, and she can communicate with non-experts from other fields. Should she spring for the same MBA Amber's looking at, she'll be in technical management and six figures isn't far off.

Finally, Eggbert's brother Eddie hates school because he's seen what a wreck it's made of Eggbert's social life. He rides his skateboard a lot and smokes dope. He still needs a job, though. He lucks into a retail position at Starbuck's where, through the miracle of personal application, he learns the value of showing up on time, working hard, and not sucking at his job. He's on the same management track as Amber, minus the liberal arts degree. He's a lot less polished than she is, but not so much that it's critically injuring his employability. His manager suggests he look into the management track - or hell, Eddie gets pissed off enough at his boss that he thinks he can do it. He's held up by his lack of a degree, for sure… but he's also 4 years ahead in the workforce and can crank through a diploma mill on nights and weekends. And, dollars to donuts, he's gonna spend a lot less money to end up in the exact same spot as Amber.

The argument against Comm and English degrees is that they give you more polish to do the basic stuff, but the basic stuff is rarely enough. The guy who wrote the article is a tard, and with an English degree, he'd be a tard with a better command of English. With a mechanical engineering degree he'd be a tard with a $50k a year salary.